BOOKS  BY  GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 

LEE  THE  AMERICAN 

CONFEDERATE  PORTRAITS 

UNION  PORTRAITS 

PORTRAITS  OF  WOMEN 

PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

A  PROPHET  OF  JOY 

AMERICAN  PORTRAITS 

DAMAGED  SOULS 

THE  SOUL  OF  SAMUEL  PEPYS 

A  NATURALIST  OF  SOULS 

DARWIN 

LIFE  AND  I 

As  GOD  MADE  THEM 

DAUGHTERS  OF  EVE 

THE  QUICK  AND  THE  DEAD 

SAINTS  AND  SINNERS 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  THE  HUMAN  HEART 

THE  JOURNALS  OF  GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 

(Edited  by  Van  Wyck  Brooks) 

THE  LETTERS  OF  GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 
(Edited  by  Van  Wyck  Brooks) 


PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 


j   >    >*'     i     '      'j  1      >  j          J    '     '  •'     •  j     ' 


ABIGAIL  SMITH  ADAMS 


PORTRAITS  OF 
AMERICAN  WOMEN 

By 
GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK. 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
Rifeetfibe  f&retf  CambritJjje 


COPYRIGHT,  1917,  I9I8,  1919,  BY  THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY  COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY  NORTH  AMERICAN  REVIEW  CORPORATION 

COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY  GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THE  RIGHT  TO  REPRODUCE 
THIS  BOOK  OR  PARTS  THEREOF  IN  ANY  FORM 


tt&e  fciuersifct  Drt BS 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSE11S 
PRINTED  IN  THE  U.S.A. 


TO 
H.  F.  B. 


89G731 


II  y  a  trois  choses  quefai  beaucoup  aimees 
et  auxguelles  je  n'ai  jamais  rien  compris: 
les  femmes,  la  peinture,  et  la  musique. 

FONTENELLE 

Rien  ne  vit  gue  par  le  detail. 

SAINTE-BEUVE 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  might  almost  be  called  "  Portraits  of  New 
England  Women,"  since,  with  the  exception  of  Miss 
Willard,  all  of  the  subjects  studied  in  it  were  born  in 
New  England.  As  I  had  devoted  a  good  many  years  to 
distinguished  representatives  of  other  parts  of  the 
country,  I  felt  at  liberty  to  confine  my  researches  for  a 
brief  period  to  souls  nearer  home.  In  the  study  of  women 
it  is  especially  difficult  to  obtain  satisfactory  material, 
and  material  affecting  the  lives  of  New  England  women 
was  most  readily  accessible  to  me.  At  the  same  time, 
of  the  seven  New  England  characters  here  portrayed, 
at  least  three,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe,  Margaret  Fuller 
Ossoli,  and  Louisa  May  Alcott,  are  so  thoroughly  iden 
tified  with  the  country  at  large  that  one  hardly  thinks 
of  their  birthplace.  Abigail  Adams,  Mary  Lyon,  and 
Emily  Dickinson  are  known  to  a  great  number  of  their 
countrywomen  and  Sarah  Alden  Ripley  ought  to  be  so. 
I  hope,  moreover,  to  follow  this  series  with  another, 
embracing  prominent  women  of  other  sections. 

I  am  under  deep  obligation  to  various  persons  for 
assistance  in  my  work.  Mrs.  Ripley's  grandchildren 
have  kindly  supplied  me  with  numerous  letters,  without 
which  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  make  an  ade 
quate  study  of  her.  Miss  Charlotte  A.  Hedge  has  lent 
me  letters  of  Margaret  Fuller  to  Dr.  F.  H.  Hedge,  and 
the  Boston  Public  Library  has  placed  its  valuable 
Ossoli  manuscripts  at  my  disposal.  Mount  Holyoke 
College  has  enabled  me  to  make  use  of  a  most  interest 
ing  collection  of  reminiscences  of  Mary  Lyon.  Mr. 


x  PREFACE 

C.  K.  Bolton  has  allowed  me  to  examine  the  corre 
spondence  of  Frances  Willard  with  his  mother,  Mrs. 
Sarah  Knowles  Bolton.  And  Mr.  McGregor  Jenkins 
has  lent  me  letters  and  has  more  especially  furnished 
me  with  significant  personal  memories  of  Emily  Dick 
inson.  To  all  these  collaborators  I  am  very  grateful. 

GAMALIEL  BRADFORD 

Wdlesley  Hills,  Massachusetts 
September  30, 1919 


CONTENTS 

I.  ABIGAIL  ADAMS  i 

II.  SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  33 

III.  MARY  LYON  65 

IV.  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  99 
V.  MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI  131 

VI.  LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  165 

VII.  FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD  195 

VIII.  EMILY  DICKINSON  227 

NOTES  £59 

INDEX  21 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

ABIGAIL  SMITH  ADAMS  Frontispiece 

SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  34 

MARY  LYON  66 

HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  100 

MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI  -  v  132 

LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  166 

FRANCES  WILLARD  196 
EMILY  DICKINSON 


PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

I 

ABIGAIL  ADAMS 


,  CHRONOLOGY 

Abigail  Smith. 

Born  in  Weymouth,  Massachusetts,  November  II,  1744. 

Married  John  Adams,  October  25,  1764. 

In  Europe  1784-1788. 

Died  at  Quincy,  Massachusetts,  October  28,  1818. 


PORTRAITS  OF 
AMERICAN  WOMEN' 

i 

ABIGAIL  ADAMS 
I 

THE  wife  of  President  John  Adams  and  the  mother  of 
President  John  Quincy  Adams  is  sometimes  accused  of 
being  more  man  than  woman  in  her  temperament.  This 
is  a  mistake.  She  was  a  woman  and  a  charming  one, 
even  in  an  age  when  there  was  no  offense  in  saying  that 
women  differed  from  men  in  their  hearts  as  well  as  in 
their  garments. 

She  had  a  large  and  varied  life.  Starting  from  a 
peaceful  New  England  parsonage,  where  she  learned 
the  love  of  God  and  good  breeding,  she  passed  a  quiet 
girlhood,  then  plunged,  in  her  early  married  days,  into 
the  fierce  tumult  of  the  Revolution,  managed  her  family 
and  estate  during  her  husband's  long  periods  of  absence, 
stood  at  his  side  in  the  presence  of  the  sovereigns  of 
Europe,  reigned  as  the  president's  wife  over  the  society 
of  Washington,  and  shared  the  long  post-presidential 


4       PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

retirement  in  the  Quincy  home.  She  was  always  ade 
quate  to  every  situation  and  said  the  word  and  did  the 
deed  thai  dignity  and  high  patriotism  required  of  her. 
But  it  is  impossible  to  read  her  many  letters  and  not  feel 
that  through  it  all  she  was  charmingly  and  delicately  a 
woman. 

She  herself  understood  and  appreciated  the  softer 
elements  of  the  feminine  character.  In  England  she 
complains  somewhat  of  the  lack  of  these  qualities :  "  The 
softness,  peculiarly  characteristic  of  our  sex,  and  which 
is  so  pleasing  to  the  gentlemen,  is  wholly  laid  aside  here 
for  the  masculine  attire  and  manners  of  the  Amazo- 
nians."1  She  herself  is  feminine  in  the  deeper  things 
of  life,  in  the  tenderness  of  her  affection  and  in  the 
bitterness  of  her  mourning,  when  those  she  loves  are 
lost  to  her,  as  in  her  profound  grief  over  her  mother's 
death.  She  is  just  as  feminine  in  those  lighter  trifles 
of  fashion  and  dress  which  are  supposed  —  by  men  — 
to  form  the  chief  part  of  woman's  conversation  and 
correspondence. 

She  was  a  thorough  woman  in  her  domestic  interests^ 
in  that  busy,  often  trivial,  care  which  sustains  the  un 
conscious  felicity  of  home.  She  looked  after  her  hus 
band's  comfort  as  well  as  his  greatness.  In  the  midst  of 
shrewd  advice  as  to  his  moral  bearing  among  those 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  5 

who  were  making1  the  American  nation,  she  murmurs  a 
housewife's  anxiety  about  his  personal  appearance:  "I 
feel  concerned  lest  your  clothes  should  go  to  rags,  hav 
ing  nobody  to  take  any  care  of  you  in  your  long  absence; 
and  then,  you  have  not  with  you  a  proper  change  for 
the  seasons."2  She  feels,  sometimes  a  little  impatiently, 
the  hurry  of  nothing  which  makes  up  domestic  life. 
Her  health?  She  believes  she  has  little  health.  " Much 
of  an  invalid," 3  she  calls  herself  casually,  and  elsewhere 
admits  that  her  "health  is  infirm/'  and  that  she  is  not 
"built  for  duration."4  But,  bless  me,  she  has  no  time 
to  think  about  health,  or  talk  about  it,  or  write  about  it. 
The  machine  must  go  as  long  as  it  will. 

How  apt  and  vivid  is  her  sketch  of  the  interruptions 
that  puncture  the  whole  course  of  her  home  existence ! 
She  rises  at  six  o'clock  and  makes  her  own  fire,  "in 
imitation  of  his  Britannic  Majesty."  She  calls  her  serv 
ants  —  repeatedly,  and  notes  that  in  future  she  will  hire 
only  those  who  will  stir  at  one  call.  Breakfast  gets  on 
the  table.  She  would  like  to  eat  it.  A  man  comes  with 
coal.  A  man  comes  with  pigs.  Another  man  comes  for 
something  else,  and  another.  Meanwhile,  where  is 
breakfast?  And  what  flavor  has  it?  "Attended  to  all 
these  concerns.  A  little  out  of  sorts  that  I  could  not 
finish  my  breakfast.  Note;  never  to  be  incommoded 


6       PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

with  trifles." 5  You  think  you  are  reading  Madame  de 
Sevigne. 

Yet  she  loves  her  home  with  all  a  woman's  true,  deep 
affection.  Men  often  claim  a  speciality  of  home  loving 
and  decry  a  woman's  restlessness.  They  do  not  realize 
that  they  shake  off  the  burden  of  life  when  they  enter 
their  own  doors.  A  woman  takes  it  up.  Yet  few  men's 
love  is  really  deeper  than  a  woman's  for  the  home  she 
has  created  and  every  day  sustains.  It  was  so  with  this 
lady.  There  are  cares,  indeed.  But  what  is  life  with 
out  cares ?  "I  have  frequently  said  to  my  friends,  when 
they  have  thought  me  overburdened  with  care,  I  would 
rather  have  too  much  than  too  little.  Life  stagnates 
without  action."6  And  though  she  saw  and  knew  all 
the  diversions  of  society  and  all  the  heights  and  depths 
of  the  great  outer  world,  she  clung  steadfastly  to  the 
simplest  maxim  of  a  woman's  heart.  "Well-ordered 
home  is  my  chief  delight,  and  the  affectionate,  domestic 
wife,  with  the  relative  duties  which  accompany  that 
character,  my  highest  ambition."7 

And  as  she  was  a  woman  in  her  love  of  home,  so  she 
was  thoroughly  a  woman  in  her  love  of  her  children  and 
in  her  care  for  them.  If  they  are  ill,  she  watches  at  their 
bedsides  with  the  tenderest  solicitude,  delights  in  their 
recovery,  and  mourns  almost  beyond  consolation  when 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  7 

one  is  untimely  snatched  away.  She  herself  superin 
tends  their  early  studies,  and  most  thoughtfully  and 
carefully.  She  does  indeed  regret  her  own  lack  of  book 
learning,  because  she  has  none  to  impart  to  her  daugh 
ters;  but  perhaps,  even  in  this  regard,  she  was  less 
deficient  than  might  be  thought.  She  keeps  little  Johnny 
at  her  knee  reading  aloud  Rollin's  "Ancient  History," 
and  hopes  that  he  will  come  to  "  entertain  a  fondness  for 
it." 8  She  vastly  prefers  Dr.  Watts's  "  Moral  Songs  for 
Children"  to  modern  frivolities  of  "Jack  and  Jill"  and 
"  Little  Jack  Homer."  9  Would  she  have  liked  "  Hollo," 
I  wonder,  or  would  she  not? 

Whatever  the  value  of  her  literary  teaching,  her 
moral  lessons  were  as  homely,  as  sturdy,  and  as  lofty 
as  those  of  a  matron  of  Plutarch.  On  this  point  she  was 
fully  supported  by  the  resonant  precepts  of  her  husband : 
"Root  out  every  little  thing.  Weed  out  every  mean 
ness.  Make  them  great  and  manly.  Teach  them  to 
scorn  injustice,  ingratitude,  cowardice,  and  falsehood."10 
But  she  needed  no  precepts  from  any  one.  Out  of  her  own 
heart  she  taught  these  things,  and  her  apostrophe  to  her 
son,  when  he  left  her  for  the  great  world,  is  simply  the 
flower  of  lessons  and  influences  established  many  years 
before:  "Dear  as  you  are  to  me,  I  would  much  rather 
you  should  have  found  your  grave  in  the  ocean  you  have 


8       PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

crossed,  or  that  any  untimely  death  should  crop  you  in 
your  infant  years,  than  see  you  an  immoral,  profligate, 
or  graceless  child."  n 

If  one  wants  evidence  of  this  maternal  loftiness  and 
maternal  tenderness  combined,  one  has  only  to  open  the 
Diary  of  John  Quincy  Adams  and  to  see  how  reverent, 
how  affectionate,  and  how  obviously  sincere  are  the 
numerous  references  to  his  mother's  care  and  devotion. 
"  My  mother  was  an  angel  upon  earth.  She  was  a  min 
ister  of  blessing  to  all  human  beings  within  her  sphere 
of  action.  .  .  «  She  has  been  to  me  more  than  a  mother. 
She  has  been  a  spirit  from  above  watching  over  me  for 
good,  and  contributing  by  my  mere  consciousness  of  her 
existence  to  the  comfort  of  my  life." 12  "  There  is  not  a 
virtue  that  can  abide  in  the  female  heart  but  it  was  the 
ornament  of  hers." 13  Yet  the  younger  Adams  was  not 
one  inclined  to  overestimate  human  nature,  even  in  those 
most  nearly  bound  to  him.  His  devotion  to  his  mother's 
memory  was  as  persistent  as  it  was  profound.  When  he 
himself  had  reached  his  seventy-sixth  year,  the  mere 
reading  of  some  of  her  letters  threw  him  into  a  state  of 
singular  excitement.  "I  actually  sobbed  as  he  read, 
utterly  unable  to  suppress  my  emotion.  Oh,  my  mother ! 
Is  there  anything  on  earth  so  affecting  to  me  as  thy 
name?  so  precious  as  thy  instructions  to  my  childhood, 
so  dear  as  the  memory  of  thy  life?  " 14 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  9 

We  may  safely  say,  then,  that  this  was  a  true  woman 
in  her  home  and  with  her  children.  She  was  a  woman 
likewise  in  the  freshness  and  vivacity  of  her  social  re 
lations.  When  she  writes  to  her  granddaughter,  "Culti 
vate,  my  dear,  those  lively  spirits  and  that  sweet  inno 
cence  and  contentedness,  which  will  rob  the  desert  of  its 
gloom,  and  cause  the  wilderness  to  bloom  around  you,"15 
we  know  that  she  herself  had  cultivated  these  things 
with  assiduity  and  success.  She  was  in  no  way  depend 
ent  upon  society  and  there  were  times  when  she  dis 
tinctly  shrank  from  it,  when  its  duties  were  a  burden  and 
its  forms  and  ceremonials  a  wearisome  embarrassment. 
Her  happiest,  sunniest  hours  were  no  doubt  passed  with 
her  husband  and  children  in  the  busy  retirement  of  her 
Quincy  home.  But  at  different  periods  of  her  life  she 
was  called  upon  to  mingle  in  all  sorts  of  social  circles, 
the  loftiest  as  well  as  the  most  brilliant,  and  everywhere 
she  bore  herself  with  the  grace  and  ease  and  dignity 
of  a  refined  and  accomplished  lady. 

She  had  those  most  essential  ingredients  of  the  social 
spirit,  a  woman's  quick  sense  of  the  varied  interest  of 
human  character  and  a  woman's  sympathetic  insight 
into  the  workings  of  the  human  heart.  And  she  had, 
also,  a  rare  power  of  expression,  so  that  her  account  of 
Striking  scenes  and  distinguished  people  has  often  some- 


io      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

thing  of  the  snap  and  sparkle  of  Lady  Mary  Montagu 
or  Madame  de  Sevigne.  How  admirable,  for  instance, 
is  her  picture  of  Madame  Helvetius,  the  friend  of  Frank 
lin,  ending,  "I  hope,  however,  to  find  amongst  the  French 
ladies  manners  more  consistent  with  my  ideas  of  de 
cency,  or  I  shall  be  a  mere  recluse." 16  Or,  for  a  briefer 
sketch,  take  that  of  Mrs.  Cranch,  who  is  "a  little,  smart, 
sprightly,  active  woman  and  is  wilted  just  enough  to  last 
to  perpetuity." 17 

And  Mrs.  Adams's  thorough  womanliness  showed  not 
only  in  her  personal  relations,  in  her  daily  interests,  in 
her  social  glitter  and  vivacity,  but  in  deeper  and  more 
subtle  sensibilities,  which  many  true  women  are  without. 
She  had  an  excellent  control  over  her  nerves,  was  quite 
capable  of  stoical  heroism,  as  we  shall  see  later,  but  the 
nerves  were  there  and  show,  through  all  her  mastery. 
She  would  have  readily  admitted,  with  the  lady  of 
Shakespeare, 

I  am  a  woman,  therefore  full  of  fears. 

Or,  as  she  herself  puts  it,  "  I  never  trust  myself  long  with 
the  terrors  which  sometimes  intrude  themselves  upon 
me." 18  The  nerves  responded  to  all  sorts  of  other  sug 
gestions  also.  To  art  perhaps  not  so  much.  The  early 
training  of  Puritan  New  England  did  not  altogether  fit 
nerves  for  aesthetic  sensibility.  Yet  her  enthusiasm  over 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  n 

the  opera  in  Paris  is  far  more  than  a  mere  conventional 
ecstasy,  and  the  possibilities  of  music  for  her  are  richly 
indicated  in  a  casual  sentence:  "I  cannot  describe  to 
you  how  much  I  was  affected  the  other  day  with  a  Scotch 
song,  which  was  sung  to  me  by  a  young  lady  in  order  to 
divert  a  melancholy  hour." 19 

Nature  touched  her  even  more  than  music.  The  poets 
she  knew  were  those  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  her 
formal  description  has  rather  too  much  of  eighteenth- 
century  zephyrs  and  vernal  airs.  But  it  is  easy  to  get 
through  this  to  her  real,  deep  love  of  bare  New  England 
pastures  and  wide  meadows  and  the  homely  country 
side  that  had  woven  itself  into  her  life.  And  as  the 
nerves  thrilled  to  old  Scotch  airs,  so  they  quivered  and 
melted  under  the  coming  of  May  days.  "The  approach 
of  spring  unstrings  my  nerves,  and  the  south  winds 
have  the  same  effect  upon  me  which  Brydone  says  the 
Sirocco  winds  have  upon  the  inhabitants  of  Sicily."20 

In  short,  she  was  a  shifting,  varying,  mercurial 
creature,  as  perhaps  we  all  are,  but  she  certainly  more 
than  many  of  us.  "Oh,  why,"  she  exclaims,  "was  I 
born  with  so  much  sensibility,  and  why,  possessing  it, 
have  I  so  often  been  called  to  struggle  with  it  ?  " 21  One 
moment  she  is  "lost  and  absorbed  in  a  flood  of  tender 
ness."  22  The  next  "  my  heart  is  as  light  as  a  feather  and 


12      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

my  spirits  are  dancing/'23  To-day  she  writes:  "I  am 
a  mortal  enemy  to  anything  but  a  cheerful  counte 
nance  and  a  merry  heart."24  And  then  to-morrow:  "I 
have  many  melancholy  hours,  when  the  best  company 
is  tiresome  to  me  and  solitude  the  greatest  happiness 
I  can  enjoy."25 

So  it  can  hardly  be  claimed  that  she  was  too  stoical 
and  too  philosophical  and  too  stern-hearted  to  be  a 
woman. 

II 

BUT  Mrs.  Adams  lived  in  a  tremendous  time.  In  her 
early  married  years  her  husband's  political  duties  left 
her  alone  to  do  both  her  work  and  his  in  the  midst  of 
difficulty  and  danger.  Later  she  was  called  upon  to 
stand  by  his  side  through  great  crises  of  statesmanship 
and  to  give  him  counsel  in  triumph  and  comfort  in  de 
feat.  She  performed  all  these  functions  nobly,  and  to  do 
it  required  something  more  than  the  usual  feminine  con 
tributions  to  domestic  felicity.  She  had  a  woman's 
heart,  a  woman's  nerves,  a  woman's  tenderness;  but 
little  indeed  of  what  a  man  recfuires  to  make  his  way  in 
life  was  lacking  to  her. 

She  had  a  high  and  fine  intelligence.  Elaborate  edu 
cation  she  had  not,  nor  any  woman  in  that  day.  She 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  13 

herself  complains  that  she  was  not  sent  to  school,  that 
ill  health  prevented  any  systematic  mental  training,  that 
reading  and  writing  and  the  simplest  arithmetic,  with 
a  few  accomplishments,  were  all  that  was  thought  neces 
sary  for  her  or  any  of  her  sex.  In  later  life  she  be 
wailed  this  state  of  things  and  urged  that  a  wide  and 
rational  spiritual  culture  was  as  necessary  and  as  suit 
able  for  women  as  for  men. 

But  we  all  know  that  education  does  not  make  intel 
ligence  and  that  natural  intelligence  can  supply  almost 
everything  that  education  gives  to  either  man  or  woman. 
After  all,  schooling  is  but  an  inadequate  and  apologetic 
substitute  for  brains.  Brains  Mrs.  Adams  had,  and 
needed  no  substitute.  From  her  childhood  her  keen 
and  active  wit  was  working,  observing,  acquiring,  re 
jecting,  laying  by  for  future  use.  She  was  always  a 
wide  reader,  —  read  and  quoted  Shakespeare  and  Pope 
and  the  eighteenth-century  poets  and  essayists.  Her 
acuteness  and  independence  of  judgment  are  well  shown 
in  this  comment  on  the  Drama  of  Moliere:  "I  send 
with  this  the  first  volume  of  Moliere  and  should  be  glad 
of  your  opinion  of  them.  I  cannot  be  brought  to  like 
them.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  a  general  want  of  spirit, 
at  the  close  of  every  one  I  have  felt  disappointed.  There 
are  no  characters  but  what  appear  unfinished  and  he 


i4      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

seems  to  have  ridiculed  vice  without  engaging  us  to 
virtue;  and  though  he  sometimes  makes  us  laugh,  yet 
't  is  a  smile  of  indignation.  .  .  .  Moliere  is  said  to  have 
been  an  honest  man,  but  sure  he  has  not  copied  from 
his  own  heart.  Though  he  has  drawn  many  pictures 
of  real  life,  yet  all  pictures  of  life  are  not  to  be  exhib 
ited  upon  the  stage." 26  Above  all,  she  read  the  classics, 
of  course  in  translation;  even  writers  minor  or  less 
known,  like  Polybius.  Plutarch  she  nourished  her  heart 
on,  and  when  she  signed  her  letters  to  her  husband, 
"Portia,"  it  was  partly  an  eighteenth-century  affecta 
tion,  but  much  more  that  the  iron  of  old  Roman  virtue 
had  entered  into  the  very  substance  of  her  soul. 

Also,  her  intelligence  reached  far  beyond  books.  She 
had  that  penetrating,  analytical  instinct  which  plucks 
wisdom  from  the  actions  and  motives  of  men  and  which 
especially  lays  the  foundation  of  such  wisdom  in  a  close, 
dispassionate  study  of  the  observer's  own  heart  "  You 
know  I  make  some  pretensions  to  physiognomy," 27  she 
writes.  The  pretensions  were  justified.  She  saw  many 
faces  in  her  life  and  read  them  attentively,  curiously, 
and  always  with  profit. 

But  the  finest  testimony  to  Mrs.  Adams's  intelligence 
is  the  letters  addressed  to  her  by  her  husband  and  her 
son.  Both  were  men  of  wide  and  deep  reflection.  Both 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  15 

touched  perpetually  the  gravest  problems  of  statesman 
ship  and  of  human  conduct  generally.  Both  discussed 
these  problems  with  wife  and  mother  as  they  would 

> 

have  discussed  them  together,  or  with  the  wisest  men 
of  their  time.  Would  this  have  been  possible  with 
any  but  a  mind  of  the  broadest  grasp  and  keenest 
power  of  comprehension? 

And  the  intelligence  was  progressive  as  well  as  vigor 
ous.  Mrs.  Adams's  energetic  protest  to  her  husband 
against  the  legal  and  political  subjection  of  women  in 
that  day  has  been  often  quoted  and  justly  praised,  —  it 
is  as  dignified  as  it  is  energetic:  "That  your  sex  are 
naturally  tyrannical  is  a  truth  so  thoroughly  established 
as  to  admit  of  no  dispute,"28  and  she  urges  such  an 
adjustment  of  law  as  may  check  that  tyranny.  In  re 
ligious  matters  there  is  the  same  broad,  sober  common- 
sense.  Mrs.  Adams  had  been  brought  up  in  the  strictest 
New  England  Calvinism,  and  always  retained  the  in 
tense  earnestness  of  that  creed  and  its  disposition  to 
try  all  things  by  the  standard  of  conscience.  But  big 
otry  and  intellectual  cowardice  were  alike  abhorrent  to 
her,  and  she  had  no  inclination  to  judge  others  harshly. 
"  True,  genuine  religion  is  calm  in  its  inquiries,  deliber 
ate  in  its  resolves,  and  steady  in  its  conduct."29  And 
besides  common-sense  she  infused  into  her  piety  some- 


1 6      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

thing  of  that  sunshine  which  was  the  sorest  need  of 
Calvinism  and  for  want  of  which  it  perished:  "I  am 
one  of  those  who  are  willing  to  rejoice  always.  My 
disposition  and  habits  are  not  of  the  gloomy  kind.  I 
believe  that '  to  enjoy  is  to  obey/  " 80 

But  vigorous  and  clear  as  Mrs.  Adams's  mind  was 
in  the  abstract,  its  energy  showed  still  more  in  practical 
matters,  as  was  natural  and  necessary  with  the  life  she 
lived.  We  have  seen  that  she  could  be  perfectly  con 
tented  with  simple  home  surroundings  and  regular 
pursuits.  But  she  wanted  neither  sloth  nor  lethargy. 
"Confinement  does  not  suit  me  or  my  family,"31  she 
wrote  to  her  granddaughter.  And  again:  "Man  was 
made  for  action,  and  for  bustle,  too,  I  believe.  I  am 
quite  out  of  conceit  with  calms." 82  She  had  her  share 
of  furious  housewifery,  and  no  sooner  gets  on  shipboard 
than  she  sets  to  work  with  "scrapers,  mops,  brushes, 
infusions  of  vinegar,  etc.,"83  to  produce  the  neatness 
and  order  which  she  maintained  daily  at  home  without 
such  appeal  to  violent  measures. 

And  her  domestic  economy  went  far  beyond  mops  and 
brushes.  During  her  husband's  long  and  necessary  ab 
sences,  she  undertook  not  only  the  ordinary  duties  of 
wife  and  mother,  but  the  general  management  of  farms 
and  property,  and  performed  these  functions  most  effi- 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  17 

ciently,  as  is  shown  by  the  commendation  which  she 
receives  from  her  loving  partner  quite  as  frequently  as 
advice.  She  makes  purchases  and  sales,  she  hires  help, 
she  garners  crops.  Through  it  all  she  carries  her  own 
burden  and  avoids,  so  far  as  possible,  filling  her  letters 
with  complaints.  "I  know  the  weight  of  public  cares 
lie  so  heavy  upon  you  that  I  have  been  loath  to  mention 
your  own  private  ones." 84 

In  dealing  with  that  greatest  and  ever-present  and 
insoluble  problem  of  married  and  all  other  life,  money, 
Mrs.  Adams  herself  asserts  that  she  was  thrifty  and 
prudent.  So  do  all  the  rest  of  us,  all  man  and  woman 
kind.  But  in  this  case  I  think  we  may  believe  the  state 
ment.  There  was  certainly  no  niggardliness.  The 
husband  was  too  large  for  petty  cheese-paring.  "You 
know  I  never  get  or  save  anything  by  cozening  or 
classmating," 35  he  writes,  and  his  wife  was  like  him. 
She  maintained  a  sober  decency  and  propriety  in  her 
own  expenditure,  and  through  all  the  cramped  revolu 
tionary  time,  when  dollars  were  even  rarer  than  hope, 
she  always  kept  and  used  the  means  of  relieving  those 
whose  straits  were  worse  than  her  own.  But  she  under 
stood  thoroughly  both  the  theory  of  economy  and  its 
practice.  Few  professional  students  would  have  an 
alyzed  financial  conditions  more  keenly  than  she  does  in 


i8      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

the  long  letter  written  to  her  husband  at  an  early  stage 
of  the  war.36  And  the  practical  strain  shows  in  her 
simple  statement :  "  I  have  studied,  and  do  study,  every 
method  of  economy  in  my  power;  otherwise  a  mint  of 
money  would  not  support  a  family." 37 

Certainly,  without  any  intention  of  boasting,  she  her 
self,  in  her  later  years,  sums  up  her  usefulness  to  hus 
band  and  children  when  she  is  explaining  to  her  sister 
the  multiplicity  of  care  that  seems  to  hang  around  her 
as  thickly  in  age  as  it  did  in  youth:  "You  know,  my 
dear  sister,  if  there  be  bread  enough,  and  to  spare,  un 
less  a  prudent  attention  manage  that  sufficiency,  the 
fruits  of  diligence  will  be  scattered  by  the  hand  of  dis 
sipation.  No  man  ever  prospered  in  the  world  without 
the  consent  and  cooperation  of  his  wife."88 

As  she  had  patience  to  endure  want  and  privation, 
so  she  had  courage  to  meet  danger.  When  those  she 
loves  are  in  peril,  her  heart  feels  "like  a  heart  of 
lead/'39  But  for  herself,  sensitive  as  her  nerves  may 
be,  there  is  a  strain  of  heroism  which  swells  and  hardens 
at  the  touch  of  emergency.  The  anticipation  of  evils 
makes  her  doubt  a  little.  "If  danger  comes  near  my 
dwelling,  I  suppose  I  shall  shudder."40  But  when  her 
husband  writes  to  her,  "  In  case  of  real  danger,  of  which 
you  cannot  fail  to  have  previous  intimations,  fly  to  the 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  19 

woods  with  our  children/'41  we  know,  we  see,  that  she 
would  have  had  perfect  presence  of  mind  either  to  fly 
or  to  remain,  as  the  wisest  courage  might  dictate.  "I 
am  not  suddenly  elated  or  depressed, " 42  she  says ;  and 
again,  "  I  am  not  apt  to  be  intimidated." 43  Though  she 
was  far  from  given  to  self -commendation,  she  declares 
solemnly  that  if  the  men  are  not  able  to  perform  their 
duty  to  their  country,  the  enemy  will  find  the  women 
to  be  a  veritable  race  of  Amazons.  Nay,  she  even  goes 
forth  as  a  spectator  and  enjoys  one  of  the  most  fierce, 
intense  excitements  known  to  man,  the  vision  of  a  field 
of  battle.  "  I  have  just  returned  from  Penn's  hill,  where 
I  have  been  sitting*  to  hear  the  amazing  roar  of  cannon, 
and  from  whence  I  could  see  every  shell  which  was 
thrown.  The  sound,  I  think,  is  one  of  the  grandest  in 
nature,  and  is  of  the  true  species  of  the  sublime." 44 

Do  not,  however,  set  this  lady  down  as  one  who  would 
have  taken  a  bloodthirsty  delight  in  bull-fights  or  the 
prize  ring.  If  she  hearkened  with  a  thrill  of  awed 
pleasure  to  the  booming  of  cannon,  it  was  because  they 
were  fired  in  defense  of  her  country  and  of  liberty.  She 
knew  well  what  her  friends  and  fellow  citizens  were 
fighting  for,  and  if  she  took  a  passionate  interest  in 
the  struggle,  it  was  because  her  whole  heart  and  hopes 
were  fixed  upon  the  end  of  it.  Her  husband's  letters 


20      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

to  her  contain  much  lucid  statement  and  analysis  of 
the  methods  and  aims  of  the  Revolution,  and  hers  are 
scarcely  behind  his  in  clear  understanding  and  intensity 
of  purpose. 

She  thought  much,  and  thought  with  broad  intelli 
gence  on  general  political  questions,  liked  to  talk  of 
them,  liked  to  write  of  them.  "Well,  you  tell  H.  she 
must  not  write  politics;  now  it  is  just  as  natural  for 
me  to  fall  upon  them  as  to  breathe."45  She  has  no 
illusions  about  democracy,  or  about  human  nature, — 
speaks  at  times  even  with  cynical  insight  of  its  failures 
and  defects.  The  lamentable  inconsistencies  of  states 
manship  are  not  hidden  from  her.  How  many  who 
were  fighting  for  American  freedom  at  that  day  had 
!  the  courage  to  cry  out  that  it  was  absurd  for  men  who 
kept  slaves  to  take  up  arms  and  fight  battles  in  the  name 
of  liberty?  Mrs.  Adams  had  that  courage.48 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  selfishness  of  politicians  and  the 
inadequacy  of  human  ideals,  this  wise  and  energetic 
woman  never  faltered  for  a  moment  in  her  devotion 
to  the  cause  of  her  country,  never  wavered  in  her  hope. 
The  warmth  and  the  glory  of  her  enthusiasm  must  have 
been  a  splendid  comfort  to  her  husband  and  to  all  who 
knew  her.  Her  passion  does,  indeed,  occasionally  de 
generate  into  bitterness  against  her  enemies.  Alas,  we 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  21 

do  not  need  recent  examples  to  show  us  that  this  is  too 
easy  with  even  the  wisest  and  the  noblest.  "  Those  who 
do  not  scruple  to  bring  poverty,  misery,  slavery,  and 
death  upon  thousands  will  not  hesitate  at  the  most  dia 
bolical  crimes,"  she  writes ;  "  and  this  is  Britain." 47  But 
she  has  the  same  noble  scorn  for  folly  and  meanness 
on  her  own  side.  "  If  our  army  is  in  ever  so  critical  a 
state,  I  wish  to  know  it.  .  .  .  If  all  America  is  to  be  ruined 
and  undone  by  a  pack  of  cowards  and  knaves,  I  wish 
to  know  it.  Pitiable  is  the  lot  of  their  commander."48 
And  her  words  of  counsel,  of  confidence,  of  inspiration, 
are  never  wanting.  Her  young  brother-in-law  longs  to 
enter  the  army.  She  pleads  and  reasons  with  his 
doubting  mother  to  make  her  permit  it.  Her  husband 
is  involved  in  an  endless  tangle  of  difficulty  and  danger. 
She  would  not  have  him  shun  an  hour  of  it.  "You 
cannot  be,  I  know,  nor  do  I  wish  to  see  you,  an  inactive 
spectator;  but  if  the  sword  be  drawn,  I  bid  adieu  to 
all  domestic  felicity,  and  look  forward  to  that  country 
where  there  are  neither  wars  nor  rumors  of  war,  in 
a  firm  belief,  that  through  the  mercy  of  its  King  we 
shall  both  rejoice  there  together." 49  Nor  does  she  urge 
others  to  sacrifices  which  she  is  unwilling  to  make  her 
self.  Foreign  luxuries?  Let  them  go.  Plain  milk 
makes  as  good  a  breakfast  as  sugared  coffee.  Not 


22      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

one  of  the  comforts  to  which  she  has  been  accustomed 
but  she  will  cheerfully  renounce.  If  the  men  are  taken 
from  the  fields,  the  women  will  do  the  work  for  them. 
She  herself  doubts  her  strength  for  digging  potatoes, 
but  she  can  gather  corn  and  husk  it.  What  she  can 
do,  she  will  do,  that  her  children  and  her  children's 
children  may  be  free. 

Ill 

MRS.  ADAMS'S  interesting  combination  of  a  true 
woman's  gentleness  and  sensibility  with  the  masculine 
qualities  called  for  by  her  time  is  best  studied,  as  some 
of  the  preceding  quotations  indicate,  in  her  relation  to 
her5  husband.  To  understand  this  relation  fully,  it  is 
necessary  to  have  some  idea  of  his  very  marked  and 
peculiar  character.  He  was,  then,  a  man  of  broad  in 
tellectual  power,  of  keen  insight  into  political  and  moral 
problems,  of  energetic  and  self-sacrificing  patriotism. 
He  commanded  the  respect  of  all  men  by  his  dignity, 
his  courage,  his  sincerity  of  speech  and  action,  his  en 
tire  honesty.  But  men  did  not  love  him;  for  he  had 
not  tact;  he  had  not  social  charm;  he  bristled  with  ego 
tism,  and,  like  many  egotists,  he  was  morbidly  sensitive 
and  showed  it.  I  do  not  know  any  one  quotation  that 
much  better  depicts  the  man  than  the  following:  "I 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  23 

have  a  very  tender,  feeling  heart.  This  country  knows 
not,  and  never  can  know,  the  torments  I  have  endured 
for  its  sake.  I  am  glad  it  never  can  know,  for  it  would 
give  more  pain  to  the  benevolent  and  humane  than  I 
could  wish  even  the  wicked  and  malicious  to  feel."50 
Try  to  imagine  Washington  saying  that. 

Also,  John  Adams  was  a  man  who  found  fault  with 
everything,  and  therefore  naturally  he  found  fault  with 
his  wife.  Even  his  praise  too  often  savors  of  patronage 
and  his  advice  is  apt  to  carry  a  strong  taint  of  criti 
cism.  Occasionally  he  flings  out  in  undisguised  dis 
pleasure.  Though  she  was  the  last  person  to  complain 
of  her  health,  he  cannot  resist  a  sarcasm  about  it :  "  My 
wife  has  been  sick  all  winter,  frequently  at  the  point 
of  death,  in  her  own  opinion."51  Her  indiscretion  in 
money  matters,  though  at  a  time  when  discretion  was 
almost  impossible,  provokes  him  to  sharp  reproof. 
"  How  could  you  be  so  imprudent?  You  must  be  frugal, 
I  assure  you."52  But  the  best  is  the  incident  of  the 
young  coach  horses,  driven  imprudently  to  church  and 
causing  a  most  indecorous  disturbance  there.  Mrs. 
Adams  was  not  present  herself,  but  she  authorized  the 
proceeding,  and  the  husband  notes,  in  hot  wrath,  "I 
scolded  at  the  coachman  first,  and  afterwards  at  his 
mistress,  and  I  will  scold  again  and  again;  it  is  my 


24      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

duty."63  Perhaps  a  husband  to  whom  scolding  is  a 
duty  is  even  worse  than  one  to  whom  it  is  a  pleasure. 

Nevertheless,  this  husband,  who  could  scold  and  be 
imperious  and  even  tyrannical,  like  others,  adored  and 
reverenced  and  obeyed  his  wife,  like  others.  How  pretty 

i*H 

are  his  compliments  to  her  wit  and  intelligence,  though 
he  veils  them  under  sarcasm.  Of  a  certain  acquaint 
ance  he  says:  "In  large  and  mixed  companies  she  is 
totally  silent,  as  a  lady  ought  to  be.  But  whether  her 
eyes  are  so  penetrating,  and  her  attention  so  quick  to 
the  words,  looks,  gestures,  sentiments,  etc.,  of  the  com 
pany,  as  yours  would  be,  saucy  as  you  are  this  way, 
I  won't  say."54  And  there  is  no  trace  of  sarcasm  in 
the  ample  admission  to  his  son  that  in  all  the  vicissi 
tudes  of  fortune  his  wife  had  been  his  help  and  com 
fort,  while  without  her  he  could  not  have  endured  and 
survived.  In  a  letter  written  to  his  granddaughter  the 
same  enthusiasm  appears,  even  more  nobly.  He  com 
pares  his  wife  to  the  heroic  Lady  Russell,  who  stood 
by  her  husband's  side  in  times  equally  troublous.  "  This 
lady,"  he  says,  "was  more  beautiful  than  Lady  Rus 
sell,  had  a  brighter  genius,  more  information,  a  more 
refined  taste,  and  [was]  at  least  her  equal  in  the  virtues 
of  the  heart."55 

An  extensive  correspondence,  covering  many  years, 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  25 

reveals  to  us  fully  Mrs.  Adams's  relations  with  this 
companion  of  her  long  life,  reveals  her  love  and  anxiety 
and  devotion  and  enthusiasm  for  the  man  to  whom 
she  early  gave  her  whole  heart  and  from  whom  she 
never  withdrew  it  for  a  moment.  As  he  rises  in  the 
world,  becomes  a  guide  and  a  leader,  a  prominent  citi 
zen,  a  great  historical  figure,  she  accompanies  him  in 
spirit  always,  with  watchful  care,  with  fruitful  caution, 
with  delicate  suggestion.  She  sighs  over  the  necessi 
ties  of  state  which  part  her  from  him.  She  slights,  as 
we  all  do,  great  gifts  of  fortune  that  we  have,  and 
deplores  those  that  are  denied  her.  She  hoped  to  have 
married  a  man,  not  a  title,  she  says.  A  humble,  pri 
vate  station  with  a  husband  would  have  been  sweeter 
than  grandeur  without  one.  Yet  we  know  well  enough 
that  she  would  not  have  had  him  lose  an  inch  of  for 
tune  for  her  comfort,  and  never  woman  developed  more 
fully  the  grace  and  ease  and  dignity  which  great  station 
requires  than  did  she.  The  letter  she  wrote  him  on 
the  day  of  his  inauguration  as  president  has  been  often 
cited  and  deserves  citation.  It  is  a  noble  letter.  "  My 
feelings  are  not  those  of  pride  or  ostentation,  upon  the 
occasion.  They  are  solemnized  by  a  sense  of  the  obli 
gations,  the  important  trusts,  and  numerous  duties  con 
nected  with  it.  That  you  may  be  enabled  to  discharge 


26      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

them  with  honor  to  yourself,  with  justice  and  impar 
tiality  to  your  country,  and  with  satisfaction  to  this 
great  people,  shall  be  the  daily  prayer  of  your  A.  A." 56 
And  as  she  was  perfectly  adapted  to  share  her  hus 
band's  greatness,  so  she  accepted  with  equal  composure 
and  dignity  his  comparative  failure  and  downfall  She 
did  not  seek  honors  and  glories,  she  says,  and  she  is 
quite  content  to  part  from  them.  A  peaceful  life  at 
Quincy,  with  the  man  she  loves,  is  all  she  ever  asked 
for,  and  nothing  can  be  more  delightful  than  to  have 
it  given  back  to  her.  We  know  how  much  of  sincerity 
there  is  in  such  declarations  and  how  much  of  credit 
able  and  fine  mendacity.  In  Mrs.  Adams  they  were 
probably  as  sincere  as  they  ever  are.  She  was  a  sincere 
woman.  But  though  she  was  perfectly  ready  to  accept 
her  husband's  defeat,  she  could  not  quite  forgive  those 
who,  in  her  opinion,  had  conspired  against  him  and  be 
trayed  him.  Toward  such  political  enemies  her  lan 
guage  is  not  wholly  free  from  a  certain  ungracious, 
if  pardonable,  acerbity.  Thus,  she  says  of  one  who 
should  have  been  beneath  her  contempt,  "I  hear  that 
Duane  has  got  hold  of  my  letter  to  Niles,  and  spits 
forth  vulgar  abuse  at  me  ...  but  the  low  sarcasms 
of  these  people  affect  me  no  more  at  this  day  than  the 
idle  wind."67 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  27 

Even  in  regard  to  Jefferson  her  animosity  was  long 
a-dying.  In  early  days  she  had  known  him  well  and 
admired  and  loved  him.  Then  the  fierce  political  con 
test  which  made  him  her  husband's  successor  parted 
them.  Between  the  two  men  the  feud  was  soon  for 
gotten,  and  the  long  correspondence  of  their  old  age, 
crowned  by  their  deaths  on  the  same  anniversary  of 
American  independence,  is  one  of  the  striking  traditions 
of  our  history.  But  Mrs.  Adams  forgave  more  slowly 
than  her  husband.  When  Jefferson,  who  had  always 
admired  her  and  who  spoke  of  her  as  "  one  of  the  most 
estimable  characters  on  earth,"58  finally  made  a  direct 
appeal  to  their  former  affection,  she  answered  him  with 
courtesy,  but  with  a  clear,  vigorous,  burning  logic  that 
showed  how  deep  and  unhealed  the  old  wound  was: 
Jefferson's  conduct,  she  says,  she  "considered  as  a 
personal  injury."  Then  she  ends,  as  a  Christian  should : 
"  I  bear  no  malice.  I  cherish  no  enmity.  I  would  not 
retaliate  if  it  was  in  my  power." 59  But  nobody  is  left 
in  a  moment's  doubt  as  to  what  she  felt. 

Through  all  these  accidents  and  floods  of  fortune  it 
is  easy  to  observe  how  great  at  once  and  how  unob 
trusive  was  Mrs.  Adams's  influence  over  her  husband. 
She  never  dreamed  of  any  vulgar  domination,  or  de 
sired  it.  She  knew  well  the  limits  of  her  activity  and 


28      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

his  and  respected  them.  Her  advice,  when  given  at 
all,  was  given  discreetly,  tentatively,  and,  without  being 
in  any  way  enforced,  was  left  with  time  to  prove  its 
value.  Time  did  prove  its  value,  and  in  consequence 
the  recipient  of  it  came  to  look  for  more  and  to  depend 
upon  it  more  than  he  knew,  perhaps  more  than  even 
she  herself  knew. 

Yet  in  all  that  concerned  their  personal  relations,  as 
indeed  in  all  that  concerned  human  nature,  her  knowl 
edge  was  far  finer  and  more  delicate  than  his.  It  was 
just  this  exquisite  comprehension  of  his  character  and 
temperament  that  made  her  counsel  of  such  constant 
utility.  To  be  sure,  her  means  of  information  were 
greater,  as  well  as  her  faculty  of  insight.  He  had  little 
reserve,  with  her  at  any  rate,  spoke  out  his  needs  and 
hopes  and  discouragements,  made  plain  his  strength  and 
weakness,  unrolled  his  heart  like  a  scroll  before  her 
searching  and  tender  scrutiny.  This  she  could  not  do. 
She  felt  more  than  he  those  mighty,  subtle  barriers 
which  seal  the  tongue  and  make  it  incapable  of  utter 
ing  what  it  yearns  to  utter.  In  one  of  her  letters  occurs 
this  simple  statement  which  says  so  much :  "  My  pen  is 
always  freer  than  my  tongue.  I  have  written  many 
things  to  you  that  I  suppose  I  never  could  have 
talked."60  Yet  even  her  pen  is  tongue-tied  in  compari- 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  29 

son  with  his.  Therefore  it  is  evident  that  much  of  her 
is  beyond  his  divination,  while  she  sees  clear  into  every 
corner  of  his  heart,  understands  what  affection  there 
is,  what  power  there  is,  what  weakness  there  is,  under 
stands  just  exactly  the  weight  and  significance  there 
is  in  those  scoldings  delivered  again  and  again  from  a 
sense  of  duty.  Must  we  add  that  she  saw  all  this  partly 
from  finer  vision  and  partly  from  greater  eagerness, 
while  he  saw  not  only  all  he  was  fitted,  but  also  all  that 
he  desired,  to  see? 

For  she  was  a  woman,  and  her  love  was  her  whole 
soul;  and  it  is  a  delight,  after  all  these  strayings  in 
masculine  by-paths,  to  return  to  the  woman  in  her.  She 
writes  long  letters  on  great  matters,  domestic  difficul 
ties,  foreign  levies,  questions  of  policy,  questions  of 
state;  but  always  in  some  brief  sentence  there  is  the 
heart  of  the  letter  and  the  heart  of  the  woman.  It  is  an 
noying  sometimes  to  stiff,  starched  John.  "  I  shall  have 
vexations  enough,  as  usual,"  he  writes.  "  You  will  have 
anxiety  and  tenderness  enough,  as  usual.  Pray  strive 
not  to  have  too  much/' 61  When  there  is  prospect  of  their 
letters  being  captured  by  the  British  and  printed,  his 
comment  is,  that  they  would  both  be  made  to  appear 
very  ridiculous.82 

Ridiculous !   What  does  she  care  for  being  ridiculous? 


30      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

This  is  the  man  she  worships  and  she  wants  him.  At 
the  very  suggestion  of  his  being  ill,  ten  thousand  hor 
rors  seize  upon  her  imagination,  and  she  says  so.  All 
he  writes  of  state  matters  is  very  well.  She  is  glad 
to  hear  it,  hungers  for  it.  But  she  hungers  far  more 
for  those  little  tokens  of  tenderness  which  he  has  no 
time  for  giving.  "  Could  you,  after  a  thousand  fears 
and  anxieties,  long  expectation  and  painful  suspense,  be 
satisfied  with  my  telling  you  that  I  was  well,  that  I 
wished  you  were  with  me,  that  my  daughter  sent  her 
duty,  that  I  had  ordered  some  articles  for  you,  which 
I  hoped  would  arrive,  etc.,  etc.?  By  Heaven,  if  you 
could,  you  have  changed  hearts  with  some  frozen  Lap 
lander,  or  made  a  voyage  to  a  region  that  has  chilled 
every  drop  of  your  blood/'63  Love  her,  oh,  yes,  she 
knows  he  loves  her,  after  his  fashion,  but  why  doesn't 
he  say  so,  after  her  fashion?  "Every  expression  of 
tenderness  is  a  cordial  to  my  heart." 64  "  I  want  some 
sentimental  effusions  of  the  heart."65  The  language 
is  the  language  of  Addison,  but  the  want  is  the  want 
of  Eve  forever.  It  murmurs  through  these  letters  of 
war  and  business  like  a  touch  of  birdsong  on  a  field  of 
battle. 

Then,  when  we  have  got  it  thoroughly  into  our  heads 
that  this  was  a  woman  and  a  lover,  we  can  end  with 


ABIGAIL  ADAMS  31 

her  own  splendid  answer — appropriate  at  this  day  as 
it  was  at  that  —  when  she  was  asked  how  she  bore 
having  Mr.  Adams  absent  for  three  years  in  his  coun 
try's  service.  "If  I  had  known,  sir,  that  Mr.  Adams 
could  have  effected  what  he  has  done,  I  would  not  only 
have  submitted  to  the  absence  I  have  endured,  painful 
as  it  has  been,  but  I  would  not  have  opposed  it,  even 
though  three  years  more  should  be  added  to  the  num 
ber  (which  Heaven  avert!).  I  feel  a  pleasure  in  being 
able  to  sacrifice  myi  selfish  passions  to  the  general  good, 
and  in  imitating  the  example  which  has  taught  me  to 
consider  myself  and  family  but  as  the  small  dust  of  the 
balance,  when  compared  with  the  great  community." 6<J 


II 

SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY 


CHRONOLOGY 

Sarah  Alden  Bradford 

Born  in  Boston,  July  31,  1793. 

Married  Rev.  Samuel  Ripley,  1818. 

Lived  in  Waltham,  Massachusetts,  1818-1846. 

Lived  in  Concord,  Massachusetts,  from  1846 

until  her  death. 

Husband  died,  November  24,  1847. 
Died  in  Concord,  July  26,  1867. 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY 


II 

SARAH  ALDEN   RIPLEY 

I 

FEW  American  women  of  to-day  know  of  Mrs.  Samuel 
Ripley,  but  a  sentence  from  Senator  Hoar's  "Autobi 
ography  "  will  give  her  a  favorable  introduction :  "  She 
was  one  of  the  most  wonderful  scholars  of  her  time,  or 
indeed  of  any  time.  President  Everett  said  she  could 
fill  any  professor's  chair  at  Harvard."  To  this  we 
may  add  the  testimony  of  Professor  Child,  whose  au 
thority  no  one  will  question :  "  The  most  learned  woman 
I  have  ever  known,  the  most  diversely  learned  perhaps 
of  her  time,  and  not  inferior  in  this  respect,  I  venture 
to  say,  to  any  woman  of  any  age/' 

It  seems  worth  while  to  hear  a  little  more  about  her, 
does  it  not? 

From  her  childhood  she  had  a  passion  for  books  and 
study.  Every  available  minute  was  snatched  for  them, 
and  some  that  were  not  available.  "  I  never  go  to  Boston 
or  anywhere  else,  my  passion  for  reading  increasing 
inversely  with  time,"  she  writes  when  little  more  than  a 
child.  In  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century, 


36      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

when  she  was  growing  up,  New  England  was  not  very 
favorable  to  the  education  of  girls  —  nor  was  any  other 
place.  But  she  was  fortunate  in  having  a  father  — 
Captain  Bradford,  of  Duxbury  —  who  was  a  scholar 
as  well  as  a  sea  captain,  and  who  loved  her  and  liked 
to  indulge  her  fancies. 

"  Father,  may  I  study  Latin  ?  "  she  asked  him. 

"Latin!  A  girl  study  Latin!  Certainly.  Study 
anything  you  like/' 

Whereupon  she  compares  him,  greatly  to  his  advan 
tage,  with  another  father  who  endeavored  to  convince 
his  daughter  that  "all  knowledge,  except  that  of  do 
mestic  affairs,  appears  unbecoming  in  a  female/' 

Becoming  or  not,  all  knowledge  was  acceptable  to  her. 
She  studied  Latin  until  she  could  read  it  like  a  modern 
tongue,  Greek  the  same,  also  French,  German,  and  Ital 
ian.  She  did  this  largely  alone,  German  without  any 
assistance  whatever,  persisting  incredibly,  "  working  still 
at  an  abominable  language  without  being  sensible  of  the 
least  progress,"  she  complains.  Nor  did  she  confine 
herself  to  languages.  Her  zeal  for  mathematics  and 
philosophy  was  fully  equal.  Most  of  all,  perhaps,  she 
loved  the  sciences;  and  chemistry,  astronomy,  and 
especially  botany,  were  a  delight  to  her  from  youth 
to  age. 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  37 

Nor  did  she  take  her  study  of  languages  as  a  task 
simply,  as  an  end  in  itself,  as  so  many  do.  It  was  but  a 
means,  a  greater  facility  for  getting  at  the  thoughts  of 
wise  men  and  past  ages.  She  read  Latin  and  Greek 
widely  as  well  as  thoroughly.  Tacitus  and  Juvenal  must 
have  furnished  odd  reflection  for  a  schoolgirl,  and  it  is 
not  every  infant  of  fourteen  who  regales  her  imagina 
tion  with  the  novels  of  Voltaire. 

Naturally  such  solitary  reading  in  a  child  of  that  age 
had  something  academic  about  it,  and  the  intellectual 
enthusiasm  of  her  early  letters  abounds  in  pleasing  sug 
gestions  of  copy-book  moralities.  Yet  the  keen,  vigorous 
insight  often  breaks  through,  even  here.  Conventional 
habit  might  lead  an  ordinary  student  to  moralize  on 
death ;  but  few  ordinary  students  would  generalize  their 
botanical  observations  into  the  remark  that  soon  "our 
bodies,  transformed  into  their  airy  elements,  maybe  con-, 
verted  into  the  jointed  stalk  of  the  rank  grass  whicK 
will  wave  over  our  graves."  Pretty  well  for  a  girl  of 
sixteen ! 

And  though  she  studied  rules  and  learned  traditions, 
and  so  early  laid  over  her  spirit  a  mighty  mass  of  au 
thority,  she  did  not  propose  to  be  in  any  way  a  slave  to 
it.  When  rules  vex  her,  she  cries  out  against  them.  For 
instance,  she  could  never  spell,  and  why  should  she?  "I 


38      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

wish  the  free  spirit  were  not  trammeled  by  these  con 
founded  rules."  Also,  while  she  studies  for  study's 
sake,  and  could  hardly  be  expected,  in  the  early  days,  to 
interest  herself  too  much  in  the  why  of  it,  you  get  sin 
gular  hints  of  penetration  where  you  least  look  for 
them.  She  asks  herself  whether  her  devotion  to  the 
Classics  springs  "  from  pride  of  learning  in  your  humble 
servant  or  intrinsic  merit  in  Cicero,  Virgil,  and  Tacitus." 
The  question  is  one  that  many  an  older  scholar  might 
put  with  advantage. 

It  is,  above  all,  in  the  line  of  religious  speculation  that 
one  examines  most  curiously  Sarah's  gradual  change 
from  a  conventional  acceptance  of  what  is  taught  her 
to  fierce,  independent  thinking  for  herself.  She  was 
brought  up  on  by  no  means  narrow  lines  of  orthodoxy. 
But  in  her  early  letters  there  is  a  serious  and  earnest 
acceptance  of  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Christianity 
and  a  loyal  effort  to  apply  them.  Gradually  this  unques 
tioning  submission  yields  to  the  steady  encroachment  of 
the  spirit  of  inquiry,  the  "  dread  of  enthusiasm,  of  the 
mind's  becoming  enslaved  to  a  system  perhaps  errone 
ous,  and  shut  forever  against  the  light  of  truth."  With 
the  process  of  years  the  emancipation  grows  more 
marked,  until  little  of  the  old  faith  is  left  but  the 
unfailing  habit  of  its  goodness. 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  39 

Do  not,  however,  for  a  moment  suppose  that  this 
studious  and  thoughtful  childhood  was  altogether  lost 
in  bookishness,  that  Sarah  was,  in  youth  or  in  age,  a 
stuffy  pedant.  She  was  never  that  in  the  least,  at  any 
time  of  her  life;  never  gave  that  impression  to  any  one. 
She  was  at  all  points  an  energetic,  practical,  efficient, 
common-sense  human  being.  She  did  not  indee'd  have 
the  eager  life  of  sport  and  diversion  that  the  girl  of 
to-day  has.  No  girl  had  it  then.  There  was  no  tennis 
or  basket-ball,  not  even  skating,  or  swimming,  or  riding. 
These  things  would  not  have  been  ladylike  if  they  had 
been  possible.  Instead  of  them,  there  were  only  long 
walks  in  the  Duxbury  woods,  the  rich,  wholesome  flavor 
of  the  New  England  autumn :  "  The  great  pear  tree  at 
the  gate,  full  of  orange  pears ;  the  ground  strewed  with 
golden  high-tops ;  the  girl  in  the  corn-barn  paring  apples 
to  dry;  the  woods  filled  with  huckleberries." 

Also,  there  were  the  pressing  cares  of  daily  life,  where 
mouths  were  many  and  means  were  little.  Sarah  had 
her  full  share  of  these  and  met  them  with  swift  and 
adequate  efficiency.  It  is  true,  she  groans  sometimes 
over  "that  dreadful  ironing  day,"  and  rebels  a  little 
when  "Betsey,  teasing  to  know  how  the  meat  is  to  be 
dissected,"  interferes  with  letters  filled  with  Greek  poets 
Roman  historians.  But  she  comes  right  down  to 


40      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

earth  and  stays  there,  heats  the  irons,  dissects  the  meat, 
sweeps  the  parlor,  at  proper  times  takes  an  apparently 
absorbed  interest  in  shopping  and  ribbons  and  furbe 
lows,  as  a  normal  girl  should. 

Even  her  abstruser  preoccupations  are  put  to  prac 
tical  use.  The  oldest  of  a  large  family,  she  imparts  her 
own  acquirements  to  those  who  come  after  her,  not  mak 
ing  any  one  the  scholar  she  herself  was,  but  giving  them 
all  an  education  exceptional  in  that  day  or  any  day. 
Also,  she  gave  them  more  than  book-education ;  for  the 
early  death  of  her  mother  left  her  at  the  head  of  the 
household,  and  she  attended  to  every  ciuty  as  if  her 
beloved  books  did  not  exist  at  all.  Nor  was  she  moved 
by  the  sense  of  Huty  only,  but  by  tenderness  and  affec 
tion,  as  appears  charmingly  in  the  words  written  by 
her  father  to  her  mother  from  oversea:  "Tell  Sarah 
(oh,  she  is  a  seraph!)  that  I  thank  her  with  my  tears 
which  flow  fast  as  I  now  write  and  think  of  her  good 
behavior,  her  virtues,  her  filial  piety." 

To  which  let  me  add  these  few  words  from  the  same 
source,  which  show  that  she  was  a  live,  flesh-and-blood 
girl  and  not  a  mere  copy-book  model :  "  You  I  hope  are 
skipping,  jumping,  dancing,  and  running  up  and  down 
in  Boston.  This  I  know  you  are  doing  if  you  are  well, 
for  you  are  always  on  the  wing." 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  41 

Souls  that  skip  and  dance  and  are  always  on  the 
wing  usually  have  the  elements  of  sociability  in  them. 
In  her  youth,  as  later,  Sarah  was  popular  and  beloved 
by  those  who  knew  her.  She  had  a  singular  charm  of 
simplicity  and  grace,  and  if  she  was  aroused  and  inter 
ested,  she  had  that  social  attraction  which  comes  when 
quick  words  spring  from  vivid  and  eager  thoughts.  At 
the  same  time,  she  never  sought  the  world  and  often 
shunned  it.  Her  first  preoccupation  was  with  books, 
and  she  turned  to  them  when  possible.  Trivial  social 
occasions  were  to  be  avoided  on  principle:  "I  do  not 
intend  to  give  up  all  society ;  I  intend  only  to  relinquisfi 
that  from  which  I  can  gain  no  good."  Moreover,  she 
was  naturally  shy  and  self-conscious,  doubted  her  own 
powers  of  conversation  and  entertainment,  her  own  in 
stinct  of  behavior  in  company.  A  3read  of  impropriety, 
she  says,  is  the  plague  of  her  life.  And  again,  "  I  should 
have  exerted  myself  more,  but  I  believe  I  shall  never 
learn  to  talk." 

She  was  a  close  analyst  of  her  sensations  and  experi 
ences  with  others  as  well  as  alone,  and  this  is  not  a 
temper  favorable  to  complete  social  enjoyment.  The 
hearts  of  those  about  her  she  read  with  equal  keenness 
—  a  habit  also  not  always  socially  fortunate.  She  would 
not  for  the  world  have  hurt  the  feelings  of  a  single 


42      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

human  being;  and  when  she  reproaches  herself  with 
talking  scandal,  we  know  that  it  is  such  scandal  as  one 
might  expect  from  a  saint.  But  even  at  an  early  age  she 
saw  men  and  women  as  they  are,  and  this,  alas,  in  our 
mingled  life,  is  too  often  to  appear  ill-natured.  There 
fore  she  turned  from  men  and  women  to  books  and 
thoughts.  Which  does  not  mean  that  she  had  not  kindly 
affections,  deep  and  tender  and  lasting.  Here  also 
die  sharp  probe  of  her  analysis  intrudes  itself.  To  her 
dearest  friend  she  says,  "  I  love  you  as  much  as  I  am 
capable  of  loving  any  one  " ;  and  late  in  life  she  observes, 
"  I  have  learned  by  experience  that  friendship  is  a  plant 
that  must  be  watered  and  nursed  or  it  withers." 

But  these  self-doubting  loves  often  are  the  tenderest 
and  truest,  and  Sarah's  3evotion  to  those  for  whom 
she  really  cared  was  as  sincere  as  it  was  lasting.  With  a 
humility  as  touching  as  her  independence,  she  writes  to 
one  of  then/,  "  You  are  the  only  person  who  ever  thought 
me  of  any  consequence  and  I  am  pretty  well  convinced 
that  other  folks  are  more  than  half  right.  I  want  you 
to  love  me,  but  do  as  you  please  about  it." 

These  words  were  written  to  that  singular  person 
age,  Mary  Moody  Emerson,  aunt  of  Ralph  Waldo  and 
half-sister  of  Samuel  Ripley,  whom  Sarah  afterwards 
married.  The  friendship  between  these  ladies  was 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  43 

close  and  warm,  and  Mrs.  Ripley  always  spoke  of  Miss 
Emerson  with  the  greatest  esteem.  But  one  even 
nearer  to  her  was  Miss  Allyn,  later  Mrs.  Francis,  and 
the  long  series  of  letters  that  passed  between  them  is 
delightful  in  its  simplicity,  its  cordiality,  its  curious 
revelation  of  two  pure  and  sympathetic  spirits.  What 
an  odd  mixture  it  presents  of  common  daily  interests, 
religious  aspiration,  and  intellectual  enthusiasm!  New 
bonnets,  old  prayers,  botany,  chemistry,  Homer  and 
Tacitus  jostle  each  other  on  the  same  page  with  quite 
transparent  genuineness  and  charm. 

The  one  topic  supposed  to  be  most  common  in  young 
ladies'  letters,  that  is,  young  men  and  their  doings  and 
their  attentions,  is  quite  absent  here.  The  truth  is, 
Sarah  was  not  concerned  with  such  things.  There  is 
no  evidence  that  in  her  childhood  and  youth  her  heart 
was  ever  touched.  When  she  was  twenty-five  years 
old,  she  married  Mr.  Ripley.  She  did  not  pretend  that 
it  was  a  marriage  of  love  on  her  side.  She  had  the 
greatest  respect  for  her  husband,  who  was  a  clergyman 
of  high  and  noble  character  in  every  way.  Her  father 
was  anxious  for  the  match,  and  she  yielded  to  persua 
sion.  But  at  the  time  a  life  of  solitary  study  seemed  to 
her  preferable,  as  she  frankly  admits.  The  words  with 
which  she  announced  her  engagement,  in  writing  to 


44      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

Miss  Emerson,  are  curiously  characteristic:  "Your 
family  have  probably  no  idea  what  trouble  they  may 
be  entailing  on  themselves ;  I  make  no  promises  of  good 
behavior,  but  knowing  my  tastes  and  habits  they  must 
take  the  consequences  upon  themselves."  After  which, 
it  need  merely  be  added  that  there  never  was  a  more 
devoted  and  affectionate  wife. 


II 

I  AM  going  to  pa*ss  at  once  from  Mrs.  Ripley  in  youth 
to  Mrs.  Ripley  in  age,  because  in  fairness  I  should  end 
with  the  ripe  perfection  of  her  middle  years.  It  so  hap 
pens  that  we  have  abundant  correspondence  of  the 
earlier  and  later  periods,  but  little  between,  when  she 
was  too  occupied  and  too  active  to  write.  In  age  as  in 
youth  her  spirit  was  pure,  lofty,  and  serene;  but  with 
her  temperament  it  was  natural  that  the  sadness  of  age 
should  be  peculiarly  apparent.  The  contrast  cannot  be 
better  illustrated  than  by  two  very  beautiful  passages, 
written  fifty  years  apart. 

In  the  buoyancy  of  early  days  she  writes:  "A  light 
breakfast  and  a  ride  into  town  in  the  cool  morning 
air,  stretched  my  existence  through  eternity.  I  lived 
ages  in  an  hour."  The  tottering  limbs  and  broken 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  45 

thoughts  of  after  years  recall  a  dim  echo  of  these  rap 
tures,  how  far,  how  very  far  away :  "  I  took  a  walk  in 
the  pine  grove  near  the  cemetery,  yesterday  morning, 
and  crept  down  the  hill  into  a  deep  ravine  we  used  to 
call  the  bowl,  covered  with  decayed  leaves,  where  we 
used  to  play  tea  with  acorns  for  fairy  cups;  the  acorns 
and  the  cups  remain,  but  the  charm  is  gone  never  to 
return." 

It  is  in  this  older  period  of  her  life  that  the  impression 
of  Mrs.  Ripley's  personal  appearance  survives  with  most 
of  those  who  have  told  us  anything  about  her  career.  It 
is  not  said  that  even  in  youth  she  was  especially  beau 
tiful;  but  in  youth  as  in  age  there  must  have  been  the 
suggestion  of  earnest  purity  and  dignity,  so  marked  in 
all  the  likenesses  of  her  that  remain.  Her  features  are 
calm,  thoughtful,  noble,  sympathetic,  but  with  a  hint 
of  the  sadness  of  one  who  has  meditated  long  on  life 
with  vast  comprehension  and  limited  hope. 

This  impression  of  sadness  is  undeniably  prominent 
in  the  numerous  letters  of  her  later  years.  "  Sorrow, 
not  hope,"  she  says,  "is  the  color  of  old  age."  Her 
sorrow  never  has  the  shade  of  petulance  or  pitiful 
complaint.  It  is  even  penetrated  with  a  sweet  kindli 
ness  that  often  amounts  to  sunshine.  But  the  sorrow  is 
there,  deeply  motived  and  all-pervading. 


46      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

To  her  clear  vision  it  seems  that  all  things  are  falling 
away  from  her.  Society?  The  contact  with  her  feflows 
had  never  been  the  chief  thing  in  her  life.  Now  the  few 
she  loved  are  gone  or  going,  and  the  many  who  used  to 
excite  a  vague  curiosity  have  such  different  ways  and 
thoughts  that  she  can  hardly  understand  them  any  more. 
Her  last  years  were  passed  in  the  Manse,  at  Concord, 
the  dwelling  of  her  husband's  forefathers.  The  Manse 
was  then,  as  it  has  always  been,  widely  hospitable,  and 
the  hurry  of  eager  feet  often  passed  her  threshold  and 
the  door  of  her  quiet  chamber.  She  listened  to  it  with 
sympathetic  tenderness,  but  her  interest  faded  with  the 
fading  years. 

Religion?  Religion  had  melted  for  her  into  a  great 
love.  But  of  active  beliefs  she  cherished  few  or  none. 
The  days  of  strenuous  thought  and  fierce  probing  of 
impenetrable  secrets  were  over.  She  would  gladly  put 
aside  the  little  child's  questions  if  she  could  have  the 
little  child's  peace.  "  How  well  it  is  that  the  world  is 
so  large,  that  lichens  grow  on  every  tree,  that  there  are 
toadstools  as  well  as  sermons  for  those  that  like  them." 

Newspapers?  She  had  rarely  read  them  in  her  most 
active  days.  She  could  find  little  interest  in  them  now. 
Even  the  turbulence  of  the  Civil  War  touched  her  but 
slightly.  She  had  drunk  deep  of  the  horrors  of  the  past 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  47 

and  hated  them.  Why  should  she  revive  their  torment 
in  the  present?  The  war,  she  writes,  "sits  on  me  as  a 
nightmare."  But,  like  a  nightmare,  she  shakes  it  off 
when  she  can. 

Study?  Ah,  that  alone  is  still  real,  as  always.  And 
she  would  have  echoed  the  phrase  that  Sainte-Beuve 
loved,  On  se  lasse  de  tout  excepte  de  comprendre. 
"Thank  Heaven/'  she  says,  "I  led  a  lonely  life  of  study 
in  my  youth  and  return  to  its  rest  with  satisfaction." 
The  books  on  her  shelves  are  friends  and  companions 
who  will  not  desert  her.  "When  I  am  alive  I  hold 
audience  with  Plato,  and  when  I  am  not,  I  gaze  on  his 
outside  with  delight."  She  learns  Spanish  by  herself 
at  seventy  and  reads  Don  Quixote  \vith  relish,  com 
plaining  only  that  the  pronunciation  is  impossible  for 
her.  Yet,  after  all,  even  books  are  but  pale  comforters, 
when  life  is  behind  instead  of  before.  And  in  a  dull, 
dark  moment  she  confesses  that  she  reads  mainly  to  kill 
time. 

As  the  years  grow  shorter  and  the  hours  longer,  the 
one  thing  that  she  falls  back  upon  more  and  more  is 
the  affections  of  home.  Her  memory  fails  her,  her 
great  mental  powers  no  longer  sustain  her.  But,  in 
noting  this,  she  observes  with  touching  pathos,  "  I  may 
be  childish,  but  there  are  no  limits  to  love."  In  her 


48      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

active  years  she  had  never  depended  upon  those  around 
her  for  comfort  or  for  diversion.  To  her  sister-in-law, 
who  remarked  that  she  was  contented  only  when  she 
had  all  her  children  in  the  room  with  her,  Mrs.  Ripley 
said  that  she  did  not  require  her  children's  presence  so 
long  as  she  knew  that  they  were  happy.  But  as  time 
flowed  on,  her  heart  turned  more  to  the  contact  of  those 
she  loved.  It  pleased  her  to  be  busy  for  them,  when  she 
could,  though  she  deplored  the  weakness  and  ineptitude 
of  age  in  this  regard.  "  It  seems  strange  that  I  that  have 
so  litle  to  do,  should  do  that  little  wrong."  It  pleased  her 
to  have  them  about  her.  She  writes  to  the  daughter  she 
loved  best, with  winning  tenderness:  "I  feel  a  want  un 
satisfied,  and  I  think  it  must  be  to  see  you.  Now  this 
is  somewhat  of  a  concession  for  one  who  has  always 
professed  entire  independence.  But  there  is  often, 
nowadays,  a  solitude  of  the  heart  which  nothing  can  fill 
except  your  image." 

She  loved  to  hear  the  prattle  of  her  grandchildren,  to 
watch  their  pretty,  wild  activities,  as  if  they  were  crea 
tures  of  her  dreams.  So  they  were,  and  she  regarded 
them,  as  she  regarded  the  whole  world  and  her  own 
soul,  with  a  sad  and  gentle  curiosity.  In  such  a  tender 
atmosphere  of  thought,  of  love,  and  of  memory,  she 
faded  away,  in  the  spirit  of  the  beautiful  words  which 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  49 

she  herself  wrote  not  many  weeks  before  the  end:  "We 
have  kept  step  together  through  a  long  piece  of  road  in 
the  weary  journey  of  life:  we  have  loved  the  same 
beings  and  wept  together  over  their  graves.  I  have  not 
your  faith  to  console  me,  as  they  drop  one  after  another 
from  my  side ;  yet  my  will,  I  trust,  is  in  harmony  with 
the  divine  order,  and  resigned  where  light  is  wanting. 
The  sun  looks  brighter  and  my  home  more  tranquil  as 
the  evening  of  life  draws  near/' 


III 

Now,  to  consider  Mrs.  Ripley  as  she  was  in  her  best 
years,  from  thirty  to  sixty,  with  all  her  wealth  of 
spiritual  power  and  practical  usefulness.  We  find,  of 
course,  the  same  qualities  that  we  studied  in  her  youth, 
but  amplified,  enriched,  and  balanced  by  the  full  develop 
ment  of  maturity  and  a  broader  contact  with  the  world. 
And  first,  the  wife  and  mother  and  housekeeper.  It 
must  be  admitted  that  Mrs.  Ripley's  natural  tastes  did 
not  lie  in  this  direction.  All  the  more  notable  is  it  that 
she  was  as  admirable  and  successful  here  as  in  more 
abstract  and  ambitious  pursuits.  She  herself  recognizes 
amply  that  in  giving  up  her  cherished  interests  for  a  life 
of  active  usefulness  she  had  found  gain  as  well  as  loss. 


50      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

"  I  once  thought  a  solitary  life  the  true  one,  and,  contrary 
to  my  theory,  was  moved  to  give  up  the  independence 
of  an  attic  covered  with  books  for  the  responsibilities 
and  perplexities  of  a  parish  and  a  family.  Yet  I  have 
never  regretted  the  change.  Though  I  have  suffered 
much,  yet  I  have  enjoyed  much  and  learned  more."  And 
housekeeping  for  her  meant,  not  a  ladylike  supervision, 
but  hard,  perpetual  labor.  She  rarely  had  a  servant, 
she  had  many  children,  she  had  large  social  obligations, 
and  for  years  she  had  the  needs  of  a  boys'  school  to 
provide  for.  Whatever  her  life  lacked,  it  was  not  ac 
tivity.  The  fret,  the  wear,  the  burden  of  all  these  cares 
she  undoubtedly  felt,  especially  as  her  health  was  never 
of  the  best.  Sometimes  she  longed  unutterably  to  be 
free  and  quiet.  But  she  never  complained,  she  never 
grew  sour  or  querulous.  Says  one  who  knew  her  and 
loved  her:  "In  all  the  annoyances  of  an  overtaxed  life 
I  never  saw  her  temper  touched.  She  did  not  know 
resentment;  she  seemed  always  living  in  a  sphere  far 
above  us  all,  yet  in  perfect  sympathy." 

As  a  wife  and  mother  she  did  her  full  duty  as  if  it 
were  a  pleasure.  The  affection,  almost  devotion,  with 
which  her  husband  speaks  of  her  is  sufficient  evidence 
as  to  her  relation  to  him.  I  have  already  said  that  she 
did  not  depend  upon  her  children  for  amusement;  but 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  51 

she  watched  over  them  and  entered  into  their  lives  as 
only  her  intelligence  could.  Her  methods  of  training 
and  education  were  those  of  sympathy  and  kindness,  and 
better  testimony  to  their  success  could  not  be  afforded 
than  the  noble  qualities  and  eminent  usefulness  of  her 
sons  and  daughters. 

No  account  of  these  middle  years  of  Mrs.  Ripley's 
life  would  be  complete  without  an  analysis  of  her  con 
tact  with  the  world,  with  her  fellow  men  and  women. 
In  one  way  her  career  was  an  isolated,  or  at  least  a  lim 
ited,  one.  She  never  traveled,  knew  nothing  even  of  her 
own  country  outside  the  circle  of  her  immediate  sur 
roundings.  Books  and  talk,  however,  gave  her  a  far 
wider  knowledge  of  mankind  than  this  would  promise. 
And,  though  she  did  not  go  to  the  world,  the  world  came 
to  her.  Her  father's  houses  in  Boston  and  Duxbury  were 
always  open  to  friends  and  neighbors,  and  during  her 
husband's  long  ministration  in  his  Waltham  parish,  she 
kept  up  a  hospitality  which  never  failed  or  weakened. 
All  sorts  of  people  were  welcomed  in  her  parlor,  and  if 
her  thoughts  were  often  called  away  to  other  higher  or 
lower  cares,  she  did  not  show  it  and  her  visitors  never 
knew  it. 

This  is  not  saying  that  her  duties  were  not  some 
times  irksome.  Occasionally,  in  her  most  intimate  cor- 


52      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

respondence,  she  rebelled  and  uttered  what  she  felt.  "  I 
would  there  were  any  hole  to  creep  out  of  this  most 
servile  of  all  situations,  a  country  clergyman's  wife. 
Oh,  the  insupportable  fatigue  of  affected  sympathy  with 
ordinary  and  vulgar  minds."  Yet  an  impatience  like 
this  was  but  momentary,  ancf  was  in  no  way  incompati 
ble  with  the  social  charm  which  I  have  already  indicated 
in  Mrs.  Ripley's  youth,  and  which  continued  and  in 
creased  with  age.  She  certainly  did  not  seek  society,  in 
fact  preferred  the  multitudinous  solitude  of  her  own 
thoughts;  but  neither  did  she  avoid  her  fellows,  and 
when  with  them  she  had  always  the  supreme  attraction 
of  being  wholly  and  perfectly  herself.  There  was  no 
affectation,  no  convention  in  her  manners  or  in  her  talk. 
She  said  what  she  thought,  and1,  as  her  thoughts  were 
wide,  abundant,  and  original,  her  conversation  could 
not  fail  to  be  stimulating.  She  was,  indeed,  more  inter 
ested  in  the  thoughts  of  others  than  in  her  own,  and 
never  permitted  herself  to  be  burdened  with  the  demands 
of  making  talk  where  there  was  none. 

The  shyness  of  early  years  persisted  in  the  form  of 
quiet  self-effacement.  In  the  words  of  one  who  knew 
her  well,  "  Without  being  precisely  shy,  she  often  gave 
one  the  impression  of  an  unobtrusive,  yet  extreme  solici 
tude  to  be  in  nobody's  way."  And  this  is  not  the  worst 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  53 

of  social  qualities.  It  must  not,  however,  in  Mrs.  Rip- 
ley's  case,  suggest  ciullness.  When  she  did  speak,  it 
was  with  the  ease  and  the  fertility  of  a  full  soul.  To 
Dr.  Hedge  it  seemed  that  she  had  "an  attraction  pro 
ceeding  from  no  personal  charms,  but  due  to  the  aston 
ishing  vivacity,  the  all-aliveness,  of  her  presence,  which 
made  it  impossible  to  imagine  her  otherwise  than  wide 
awake  and  active  in  word  or  work." 

Yet  even  so,  I  have  not  quite  portrayed  the  singular 
candor  and  impersonality  of  Mrs.  Ripley's  spirit.  Her 
lower  self  did  not  exist  for  her;  that  is,  she  left  it  to 
regulate  its  doings  by  an  exquisite  instinct,  without 
cumbering  her  soul  with  it.  When  her  friends,  in  jest, 
engaged  her  in  speculative  talk  and  then  put  a  broom  in 
her  hands  and  asked  her  to  carry  it  across  Boston  Com 
mon,  she  did  it  quite  without  thought.  In  the  same  way, 
she  carried  her  own  external,  social  person  through  life, 
bearing  it  with  the  flawless  and  unfailing  dignity  that 
belonged  to  high  preoccupations,  and  so  making  contact 
with  her  one  of  the  privileges  and  delights  of  all  she 
met. 

Among  the  activities  of  Mrs.  Ripley's  prime  none  is 
more  illustrative  of  her  character  than  her  teaching. 
She  taught  boys  for  many  years,  sometimes  as  an  assist 
ant  in  her  husband's  boarding-school,  or  again  simply 


54      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

taking  pupils  to  tutor  in  her  own  house.  I  find  very 
little  evidence  that  she  enjoyed  the  work.  Of  course, 
there  was  the  rare  pleasure  of  really  waking  up  a  soul, 
knowing  and  seeing  that  you  have  done  so.  But  the 
teacher  was  too  self-distrustful  to  take  much  credit, 
even  in  such  cases.  She  hated  all  responsibility — 
how  much,  then,  the  responsibility  of  a  young  life. 
She  hated  drudgery,  of  body  or  soul,  though  her  whole 
long  existence  was  made  up  of  it.  And  whatever 
pleasure  there  may  be  in  teaching,  few  will  deny  that 
there  is  drudgery  also.  Especially  she  hated  discipline, 
believed  at  least  that  she  had  no  faculty  for  it,  and 
refused  to  practice  it  in  any  harsher  sense.  It  is  said 
that,  as  she  sat  in  her  teacher's  chair,  she  knitted  assid 
uously  and  purposely,  so  that  small  infractions  of  pro 
priety  might  escape  her  notice.  It  is  said,  also,  that 
when  such  things  were  forced  upon  her,  she  made  no 
comment  at  the  time,  but  afterwards  wrote  gentle,  plead 
ing  notes  to  the  culprits,  which  never  failed  of  their 
effect. 

For,  whatever  she  may  have  felt  herself,  her  pupils 
thought  her  eminently  successful  as  a  teacher.  They 
learned  from  her,  they  obeyed  her,  they  admired  her, 
they  loved  her.  No  one  affords  better  evidence  than  she 
that  the  stimulus  of  the  soul  goes  further  than  the  stim- 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  55 

ulus  of  the  rod.  Most  of  her  boys  were  rich,  idle  fellows, 
who  had  been  suspended  from  college  or  had  never  been 
able  to  get  there.  Such  hearts  are  not  always  bad,  but 
you  have  got  to  touch  them  to  help  them.  On  this  point  I 
do  not  know  that  I  can  quote  better  testimony  than  that 
of  Senator  Hoar.  He  says  of  the  pupils  who  came  to 
her  from  college:  "She  would  keep  them  along  in  all 
their  studies,  in  most  cases  better  instructed  than  they 
would  have  been  if  they  had  stayed  in  Cambridge.  I 
remember  her  now  with  the  strongest  feelings  of  rever 
ence,  affection,  and  gratitude.  In  that  I  say  only  what 
every  other  pupil  of  hers  would  say.  I  do  not  think  she 
ever  knew  how  much  her  boys  loved  her." 

I  cannot  leave  Mrs.  Ripley's  teaching  and  practical 
usefulness  better  than  with  the  pathos  of  that  last 
sentence. 

IV 

THERE  is  no  cloubt  that  the  chief  interest  of  Mrs. 
Ripley's  best  years,  as  of  her  youth,  is  in  her  intellectual 
preoccupations.  It  is  true  that  she  theoretically  sub 
ordinates  such  preoccupations  to  useful  action,  but  her 
very  words  in  doing  this  show  her  attitude.  "I  sym 
pathize  much  with  your  tranquil  enjoyment  in  study. 
There  is  no  enjoyment  like  it,  except  perhaps  disinter- 


56      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

ested  action ;  but  all  action  is  disturbing,  because  one  is 
constantly  limited  and  annoyed  by  others."  So,  in  spite 
of  the  immense  activity  that  was  forced  upon  her  by 
her  choice  of  life  and  her  surroundings,  she  persisted 
day  after  day  and  year  after  year  in  grasping  more 
firmly  and  more  zealously  the  things  of  the  spirit. 

Sometimes,  indeed,  the  difficulties  were  so  great  that 
even  her  courage  faltered.  "  I  begin  to  think  we  must 
either  live  for  earth  or  heaven,  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  living  for  both  at  the  same  time." 

Her  health  was  uncertain;  her  time  was  broken,  till 
there  seemed  nothing  left  of  it;  those  about  her  would 
call  her  attention  to  petty  details  and  trifling  matters, 
world  removed  from  the  high  thoughts  she  loved  to 
linger  with.  It  made  no  difference.  The  persistence  — 
call  it  obstinacy  —  which  others  expended  upon  social 
success,  upon  worldly  profit,  upon  mere  immediate 
pleasure,  she  devoted  wholly  to  books,  to  study,  to  vaster 
acquisition  of  varied  knowledge ;  and  somehow  or  other 
she  knit  up  the  flying  minutes,  which  many  would  have 
wasted,  into  connected  hours  of  profitable  toil. 

Note  that  this  spiritual  effort  was  given  to  intel 
lectual  interests  pure  and  simple.  Mrs.  Ripley  had  never 
any  great  love  for  the  aesthetic  side  of  life.  Music,  unless 
as  a  matter  of  analytical  study,  made  little  appeal  to  her. 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  57 

Art  made  almost  none.  "  I  am  not  sufficiently  initiated 
into  the  mysteries  of  art  to  admire  the  right  things," 
she  says.  Even  in  poetry  her  tastes  were  narrowly 
limited.  The  Classics  she  read  because  they  were  the! 
Classics.  To  the  moderns  she  gave  little  attention  and 
less  care.  So  with  contemporary  events.  They  passed 
her  by  almost  unnoticed.  Her  whole  thought  was  given 
to  the  eternal. 

Note  also  that  she  did  not  study,  to  make  a  parade  of 
it.  She  was  as  far  as  possible  from  a  pedant  in  her 
speech  as  in  her  thought.  She  had  no  desire  whatever 
to  give  instruction,  simply  to  get  it.  Nor  did  literary 
ambition  enter  at  all  into  her  enthusiasm.  She  never 
wrote,  had  probably  no  great  gift  for  formal  writing. 
Her  one  inspiring  passion,  from  youth  to  age,  was  to 
use  every  power  she  had  in  making  just  r.  little  more 
progress  into  the  vast,  shadowy  regions  of  obtainable 
knowledge. 

As  I  have  already  pointed  out  in  connection  with  her 
young  days,  her  intellectual  appetite  was  universal  in 
its  scope.  It  almost  seemed  as  if  she  did  not  care  upon 
what  she  used  her  mind,  so  long  as  she  used  it.  The 
truth  was,  that  every  study  was  so  delightful  that  choice 
was  hardly  necessary.  Language?  All  languages  fas 
cinated  her,  and  she  grasped  eagerly  at  every  one  that 


58      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

came  within  her  reach.  The  ethereal  flights  of  pure 
mathematics  and  astronomy  might  have  absorbed  her 
altogether,  had  it  not  been  that  chemistry  and  botany 
offered  attractions  so  perpetually  and  variously  allur 
ing.  The  close  contemporary  of  Thoreau,  she  had  none 
of  his  imaginative  interpretation  of  the  natural  world; 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether  his  actual  knowledge  of  plants 
and  trees  was  more  exact  than  hers. 

On  the  whole,  it  must  be  said,  however,  that  her  chief 
interest  was  in  philosophy  and  abstract  thought.  The 
intense  preoccupation  with  heaven  and  hell  which  beset 
every  New  England  childhood  in  those  days,  turned, 
with  her,  as  with  so  many  others,  into  a  close  and  keen 
analysis  of  where  heaven  and  hell  came  from  —  and 
where  they  had  gone  to.  She  read  the  Greek  and  the 
English  and  the  German  philosophers  and  meditated 
upon  them,  with  the  result  of  a  complete,  profound,  and 
all-involving  intellectual  scepticism.  Observe  that  this 
scepticism  was  individual,  not  general.  She  was  no  dog 
matic  agnostic,  no  blatant  unbeliever;  above  all,  she 
abhorred  the  thought  of  leading  any  other  astray.  She 
was  simply  a  humble,  gentle,  reverent  seeker,  ever  anx 
ious  to  know  whether  any  one  had  found  the  light,  but 
irrevocably  determined  to  accept  no  false  gleam,  no 
deluding  will-o'-the-wisp. 


SARAH  ALDEN  RIPLEY  59 

Even  in  face  of  the  greatest  mystery  of  all  she  would 
express  only  a  deep  resignation,  making  no  pretense  to 
a  confidence  she  could  not  feel.  "  Death  is  an  event  as 
natural  as  birth,  and  faith  makes  it  as  full  of  promise. 
But  faith  is  denied  to  certain  minds,  and  submission 
must  take  its  place.  The  Unknown,  which  lighted  the 
morning  of  life,  will  hallow  and  make  serene  its  evening. 
Conscious  or  unconscious,  we  shall  rest  in  the  lap  of  the 
Infinite.  Enough  of  this.  Let  us  live  while  we  live,  and 
snatch  each  fleeting  moment  of  truth  and  love  and 
beauty." 

It  may  easily  be  maintained  that  Mrs.  Ripley  carried 
intellectual  sincerity  too  far.  She  was  so  conscientious 
that  she  made  a  dogma,  and  finally  even  a  duty,  of  doubt. 
She  too  often  overlooked  the  blessed  privilege  of  thor 
ough  scepticism,  which  is  that  it  leaves  hope  as  permissi 
ble  as  despair.  Yet  such  singular,  lucid,  unfailing  de 
votion  to  pure  truth  is  highly  notable  in  any  one.  I  do 
not  know  whether  a  man  may  be  forgiven  for  assuming 
that  it  is  especially  notable  in  a  woman. 

It  is  in  this  connection  that  I  find  a  peculiar  interest 
in  Mrs.  Ripley's  intimacy  with  her  nephew  by  marriage, 
• —  Emerson.  It  would  seem  as  if  the  two  must  have  been 
an  infinite  source  of  stimulus  and  solace  to  each  other. 
That  there  was  always  the  deepest  affection  and  respect 


60      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

between  them  is  perfectly  evident.  When  Mrs.  Ripley 
refers  to  Waldo  in  her  earlier  letters,  it  is  as  to  a  spirit 
inspired  and  almost  super-earthly.  And  in  her  old  age 
she  writes  of  his  absence,  "  I  miss  my  guide  and  support 
in  many  ways."  Emerson's  tone  is  no  less  enthusiastic^ 
not  only  in  the  eulogy  of  his  friend,  published  soon  after 
her  death,  but  in  many  passages  of  his  "  Journal." 

Yet,  with  all  this,  one  is  rather  surprised  to  note  that 
the  two  seem  to  see  little  of  each  other,  do  not  seek  in 
each  other's  society  that  constant  sympathy  that  one 
would  think  they  would  have  found  there.  The  truth 
is,  their  ways  of  looking  at  life  were  radically  different. 
Mrs.  Ripley  records  a  conversation  between  them  in 
which  she  remarked  that  "the  soul's  serenity  was  at 
best  nothing  more  than  resignation  to  what  could  not  be 
helped  " ;  and  Emerson  rejoined :  "  Oh,  no,  not  resigna 
tion,  aspiration  is  the  soul's  true  state !  What  have  we 
knees  for,  what  have  we  hands  for?  Peace  is  victory." 

This  difference  of  attitude  peeps  out  slyly  in  a  touch 
here  and  there  in  Mrs.  Ripley's  letters.  It  is  glaringly 
marked  in  the  study  of  her,  printed  at  large  in  the  sixth 
volume  of  Emerson's  "Journal."  He  does,  indeed,  re 
peat,  with  entire  sincerity,  much  of  his  former  praise. 
But  he  adds  these  somewhat  harsh  comments:  "She 
would  pardon  any  vice  in  another  which  did  not  obscure 


SARAH  ALDEN   RIPLEY  61 

his  intellect  or  deform  him  as  a  companion.  She  knows 
perfectly  well  what  is  right  and  wrong,  but  it  is  not  from 
conscience  that  she  acts,  but  from  sense  of  propriety,  in 
the  absence,  too,  of  all  motives  to  vice.  She  has  not  a 
profound  mind,  but  her  faculties  are  very  muscular,  and 
she  is  endowed  with  a  certain  restless  and  impatient 
temperament,  which  drives  her  to  the  pursuit  of  knowl 
edge,  not  so  much  for  the  value  of  the  knowledge,  but  for 
some  rope  to  twist,  some  grist  to  her  mill." 

Few  spiritual  touches  could  be  more  instructive  than 
this  conflict  of  minds  so  akin  in  many  interests  and  so 
closely  thrown  together.  A  certain  justice  in  Emer 
son's  complaints  is  undeniable.  Mrs.  Ripley's  was  in  no 
way  a  creative,  original  intelligence.  She  knew  that  it 
was  not,  and  perhaps  we  may  say,  did  not  wish  it  to  be. 
Her  mental  activity  does  at  times  appear  an  effort  at 
diversion  and  distraction,  rather  than  a  passionate 
struggle  toward  the  ultimate  ends  of  thought.  Yet  it  is 
hard  to  be  satisfied  with  Emerson's  criticism,  when  one 
reads  passages  like  the  following:  "  Religion  has  become 
so  simple  a  matter  to  me — a  yearning  after  God,  an 
earnest  desire  for  the  peace  that  flows  from  the  con 
sciousness  of  union  with  Him.  It  is  the  last  thought  that 
floats  through  my  mind  as  I  sleep,  the  first  that  comes 
when  I  wake.  It  forms  the  basis  of  my  present  life, 


62      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

saddened  by  past  experience.  It  bedims  my  eyes  with 
tears  when  I  walk  out  into  the  beautiful  nature  where 
love  is  all  around  me.  And  yet  no  direct  ray  comes  to 
my  soul." 

The  true  cause  of  the  difference  between  Mrs.  Rip- 
ley  and  Emerson  was  that  her  unconquerable,  uncom 
promising  dread  of  illusion  did  not  suit  his  persistent 
and  somewhat  willful  optimism.  The  lucid  shafts  of 
her  penetrating  intelligence  drove  right  through  his 
gorgeous  cloud- fabric.  Doubtless  she  listened  to  his 
golden  visions  with  the  profoundest  attention  and  re 
spect.  But  she  was  ten  years  older  than  he;  she  had 
known  him  as  a  boy  and  from  boyhood,  and  she  read 
the  boy  in  the  man  and  the  angel,  and  he  knew  she  did. 

I  have  no  direct  evidence  whatever,  but  I  am  inclined 
to  suspect  that  she  regarded  those  eager  pages,  peppered 
with  capitalized  abstractions,  as  Waldo's  pretty  play 
things,  which  amused  Waldo  and  could  hurt  nobody. 

Emerson's  verdict  on  Mrs.  Ripley's  moral  character 
also,  if  not  unjust,  is  misleading.  It  might  naturally  be 
expected  that  scepticism  so  complete  would  have  some 
moral  effects;  but  in  this  case  those  mainly  perceptible 
are  a  divine  gentleness  and  tolerance.  Theoretical  dis 
belief  is  apt  to  blight  action.  But  action  was  so  forced 
upon  Mrs.  Ripley  all  her  life,  that  she  could  neither 


SARAH   ALDEN   RIPLEY  63 

shun  it  nor  neglect  it.  As  to  her  moral  instincts,  Emer 
son  himself  indicates  their  sureness  and  delicacy.  They 
never  failed  her  in  any  connection.  It  was  far  more 
than  a  negative  correctness  of  conduct.  It  was  the  most 
subtle  and  pervading  sympathy  with  purity,  holiness, 
and  sacrifice,  wherever  they  might  be  found.  Above 
all,  there  was  in  her  letters  as  in  her  life  —  and  this 
Emerson  fully  recognizes — a  singular  tenderness,  a 
pervading  grace  of  comprehension,  that  endeared  her 
to  all  who  knew  her.  And  hers  is  the  saying,  notable  in 
one  who  so  greatly  prized  all  honesty  and  veracity. 
"The  law  of  love  is  higher  than  the  law  of  truth."  In 
short,  it  may  well  be  said  that  she  believed  in  nothing 
but  goodness,  kindliness,  the  dignity  of  virtue  and  the 
unfailing  delight  of  the  pursuit  of  knowledge.  Even  as 
to  these  things  she  sometimes  doubted,  though  they  were 
clamped  with  iron  tenacity  to  the  inmost  fiber  of  her 
soul,  as  to  the  existence  of  which  she  doubted  also. 

But,  however  great  the  charm  of  Mrs.  Ripley's  pure 
and  saintly  external  life,  the  chief  interest  of  her  char 
acter,  and  of  her  example,  must  always  lie  in  her  ex 
traordinary  devotion  to  intellectual  matters.  It  is  to  be 
observed  that  from  her  early  childhood  to  her  age  this  de 
votion  was  absolutely  disinterested.  Most  men  who  make 
a  business  of  study  combine  it  with  some  ulterior  object, 


64      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

either  professional  success,  or  financial  profit,  or  the 
glory  of  literary  achievement  or  of  scientific  discovery. 
This  woman  never  entertained  the  slightest  suggestion 
of  such  advantage.  With  her  there  was  but  one  aim,  — 
the  pure  exercise  of  thought  for  itself,  the  perpetual 
probing  a  little  deeper  and  a  little  deeper  and  a  little 
deeper  into  the  vast,  elusive  mystery  of  existence.  Such 
a  tremendous  and  unceasing  voyage  of  discovery  car 
ried  its  own  triumph  and  its  own  satisfaction  with  it,  and 
its  resources  of  desire  and  delight  were  as  varied  as 
they  were  inexhaustible. 

In  Pater's  "Imaginary  Portrait,"  Sebastian  van 
Storck  says  to  his  mother,  "Good  mother,  there  are 
duties  towards  the  intellect  also,  which  women  can  but 
rarely  understand."  No  man  ever  understood  those 
duties  to  the  intellect  better  than  this  woman  understood 
them. 


Ill 

MARY  LYON 


CHRONOLOGY 
Mary  Lyon 

Born  in  Buckland,  Massachusetts,  February  28,  1797, 
Mount  Holyoke  Seminary  opened  November,  1837. 
Died  March  5,  18491. 


MARY  LYON 


0         •»    o      sw>        ""  ~>         •>*•«.'€  c          i          k    C 

I- .  "i 


Ill 

MARY  LYON 
I 

MARY  LYON,  the  foundress  of  Mount  Holyoke  College, 
had  a  magnificently  persistent  spirit.  She  did  what 
she  set  out  to  do  and  got  what  she  wanted  to  get.  No 
doubt  the  grit  and  determination  in  her  were  fostered, 
if  not  bred,  by  the  sturdy,  rugged  training  of  her  child 
hood.  Born  at  the  very  close  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  on  a  farm  in  western  Massachusetts,  she  was 
brought  up  by  a  widowed  mother  with  many  children 
and  small  means.  The  discipline  was  stern,  but  it  rooted 
character  deep  down  among  the  solid  needs  and  essen 
tial  efforts  of  existence.  Every  moment  of  life  was  of 
use  and  was  put  to  use.  When  Mary  was  hardly  out 
of  infancy,  her  mother  found  her  one  day  apparently 
trifling  with  the  hourglass,  but  she  explained  that  she 
thought  she  had  discovered  a  way  of  making  more 
time.1  As  years  went  on,  she  did  make  more  time,  by 
getting  double  work  and  thought  into  what  there  was. 
It  was  not  time  only;  but  every  resource  of  life  must 
be  made  to  yield  all  there  was  in  it  and  a  little  more. 


68      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

"Economy,"  she  said  to  her  pupils  later,  "is  not 
always  doing  without  things.  It  is  making  them  do  the 
best  they  can."2  Nothing  helps  so  much  towards  this 
final  extraction  of  utility  as  knowing  the  exact  nature 
of  things,  not  only  what  they  serve  for,  but  how  they 
are  made,  even  knowing  how  to  make  them  one's  self. 
Mary  made  her  own  clothes  from  cloth  made  by  her 
own  hands.  Many  other  women  did  this;  but  Mary, 
when  she  lived  near  a  brickyard,  wanted  to  make  brick, 
and  did  it.  Always  she  had  the  instinct  and  the  habit 
and  the  genius  for  doing  something. 

Very  early,  however,  she  appreciated  that  to  do  some 
thing,  in  her  sense,  a  wider  and  ampler  education  was 
needed  than  a  New  England  farm  would  give  her.  The 
most  essential  education  —  that  of  character  —  she  could 
indeed  give  herself.  Self-training,  self-discipline,  she 
began  early  and  kept  up  to  the  end.  When  a  friend 
ventured  to  suggest  the  getting  rid  of  certain  little  awk 
wardnesses,  she  replied,  with  perfect  good  humor,  "  I 
have  corrected  more  such  things  than  anybody  ought 
to  have." 3  She  corrected  little  defects  as  well  as  great. 

But  no  one  knew  better  than  she  that  education 
could  not  come  wholly  from  within.  There  were  broad 
regions  of  spiritual  joy  and  spiritual  usefulness  which 
must  be  explored  by  the  help  and  the  guidance  of  others. 


MARY  LYON  69 

The  means  of  obtaining  such  help  and  guidance  for 
women  in  those  days  were  limited,  and  Mary's  situa 
tion  and  circumstances  made  them  doubly  limited  for 
her.  But  what  persistent  and  determined  effort  could 
do,  she  did.  Her  natural  capacity  for  acquisition  was 
undoubtedly  great.  She  said  of  herself,  in  a  connec 
tion  that  precluded  boasting,  "My  mind  runs  like 
lightning."4  It  not  only  moved  swiftly,  but  it  held 
what  it  seized  as  it  went.  She  was  given  a  Latin  gram 
mar  on  Friday  night.  On  Monday  she  recited  the 
whole  of  it.  I  do  not  know  how  much  this  means,  not 
having  seen  the  grammar;  but  obviously  it  means 
enough,  even  with  her  humiliating  confession  that  she 
had  studied  all  day  Sunday* 

In  her  case,  however,  it  was  less  the  brilliancy  than 
the  everlasting  persistence  that  counted.  She  had  no 
money  to  get  an  education.  Very  well,  she  would  get 
the  money  first  and  the  education  afterward.  She  went 
to  school  when  she  could ;  when  she  could  not,  she  taught 
others  —  for  seventy-five  cents  a  week  and  her  board. 
The  opportunities  that  she  did  get  for  her  own  work 
she  improved  mightily.  Those  with  whom  she  boarded 
when  she  was  studying  say  that  she  slept  only  four 
hours  out  of  the  twenty- four.  They  add,  with  the 
amazement  which  persons  differently  constituted  feel 


70      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

for  such  endeavor:  "She  is  all  intellect:  she  does  not 
know  that  she  has  a  body  to  care  for." B 

But  do  not  imagine  that  she  was  a  mere  human 
machine,  created  to  think  of  work  only.  She  had  her 
ups  and  downs,  as  those  who  sleep  only  four  hours  must 
— her  days  when  work  seemed  impossible  and,  what  is 
worse,  not  worth  doing;  her  utter  discouragements, 
when  the  only  relief  was  tears.  She  inquired  one  night 
how  soon  tea  would  be  ready;  was  told,  immediately; 
and  on  being  asked  the  reason  of  her  evident  disap 
pointment,  replied :  "  I  was  only  wishing  to  have  a  good 
crying-spell,  and  you  could  not  give  me  time  enough."  6 

How  far  other  emotions  touched  her  active  youth  we 
do  not  know.  She  was  always  sweet  and  merry  with 
her  companions,  but  she  had  not  leisure  for  much  social 
dissipation.  One  or  two  vague  glimpses  come  of  lov 
ing  or,  much  more,  of  being  loved,  but  they  lead  to 
nothing.  Other  interests  more  absorbing  filled  that 
eager  and  busy  heart.  As  she  looked  back  from  later 
triumphs  at  the  struggles  of  these  early  days,  she  said : 
"In  my  youth  I  had  much  vigor — was  always  aspiring 
after  something.  I  called  it  loving  to  study.  Had  few 
to  direct  me  aright.  One  teacher  I  shall  always  re 
member.  He  told  me  education  was  to  fit  one  to  do 
good.' 


99  t 


MARY  LYON  71 

Whatever  education  might  be,  she  sought  it  with  a 
fervent  zeal  which  was  an  end  in  itself  as  well  as  a 
most  efficient  means. 

II 

To  get  an  education  for  herself,  with  heroic  effort,  was 
not  enough  for  Miss  Lyon.  In  getting  it,  she  came  to 
feel  its  value  and  others'  need  of  it.  Obtaining  it  for 
them  was  an  object  for  as  much  zeal  and  devotion  as 
she  had  bestowed  upon  her  own.  No  one  then  felt  it 
necessary  that  women  should  be  educated  as  men  were. 
Men,  whether  educated  themselves  or  not,  felt  it  to  be 
distinctly  unnecessary;  and  the  suggestion  of  system 
atic  intellectual  training  for  the  weaker,  domestic  sex 
did  not  fill  the  ordinary  husband  and  father  with  en 
thusiasm.  A  fashionable  finishing  school  was  a  girl's 
highest  ambition,  and  to  be  accomplished,  pending  being 
married,  was  the  chief  aim  of  her  existence.  To  Miss 
Lyon  it  seemed  that  women  had  brains  as  well  as  men, 
were  as  well  able  to  use  them,  and  often  more  eager. 
And  she  determined  very  early  to  devote  her  life  to 
giving  them  the  opportunity. 

Her  object  was  certainly  not  money-making.  Her 
personal  standards  were  always  simple,  and  her  earn 
ings,  when  she  did  earn,  would  seem,  even  to  the  mod- 


72      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

ern  teacher,  pitiful.  In  fact,  her  view  of  profit  and  the 
teacher's  profession,  like  that  of  Socrates,  was  ideal 
to  the  point  of  extravagance.  "If  money-making  is 
your  object,"  she  cries,  "be  milliners  or  dressmakers; 
but  teaching  is  a  sacred,  not  a  mercenary  employment."  8 

So  with  the  ambition  to  be  great  and  prominent  and 
remembered.  Who  shall  say  that  any  one  is  wholly 
free  from  the  subtle  and  searching  temptation  here? 
But  at  least  she  is  free  from  it  so  far  as  she  knows 
herself.  Some,  she  writes,  will  say  that  Miss  Grant  and 
Miss  Lyon  wish  to  have  "  a  great  institution  established, 
and  to  see  themselves  at  the  head  of  the  whole,  and 
then  they  will  be  satisfied."9  And  she  recognizes  that 
this  is  human  nature,  and1  she  does  not  trouble  herself 
to  deny  the  allegation  directly,  but  her  tone  implies  that 
it  touches  her  not. 

Nor  did  she  seek  to  be  of  use  to  those  who  had  wealth 
or  social  prominence  or  influence.  They  could  take  care 
of  themselves.  What  she  wished  to  provide  for  was 
the  great  mass  of  women  throughout  the  country  who 
had  little  means  or  none,  but  the  same  devouring  thirst 
for  better  things  that  had  tormented  her.  She  would 
exclude  no  one  who  was  really  worthy,  no  one,  as  she 
said  herself,  but  "  harmless  cumberers  of  the  ground " 
and  those  "  whose  highest  ambition  is  to  be  qualified  to 


MARY  LYON  73 

amuse  a  friend  in  a  vacant  hour." 10  Such,  rich  or  poor, 
might  find  their  vocation  elsewhere.  The  saving  of  their 
souls  was  not  her  business. 

So,  trusting  in  the  goodness  of  God  and  in  her  own 
unbounded  energy,  she  set  about  taking  a  great  step 
in  the  forward  progress  of  the  world.  She  was  prac 
tically  unknown;  she  had  no  money;  she  had  no  in 
fluence,  she  had  no  access  to  the  many  agencies  which 
facilitate  the  advancement  of  great  undertakings.  She 
had  only  courage  and  hope.  "  When  we  decide  that  it 
is  best  to  perform  a  certain  duty,  we  should  expect  suc 
cess  in  it,  if  it  is  not  utterly  impossible/' n  she  said 
quietly;  and  she  practiced  as  she  preached.  She  was 
ready  to  make  any  sacrifice.  "Our  personal  comforts 
are  delightful,  not  essential." 12 

She  approached  every  one  who  could  possibly  help 
her,  with  tireless,  but  not  tedious,  persistency.  She 
went  into  people's  homes  and  pointed  out  what  she  was 
trying  to  do  for  them,  showed  fathers  and  mothers 
what  their  daughters  needed  and  how  little  effort  would 
help  to  get  it. 

She  spoke  publicly  on  formal  occasions;  she  spoke 
privately  to  any  one  who  she  thought  might  assist  her, 
even  to  strangers.  Some  of  her  friends  complained  of 
this.  In  that  day  it  seemed  odd  for  a  woman  to  make 


74      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

herself  so  conspicuous,  and  the  doubters  feared  that  she 
might  injure  her  cause  instead  of  aiding  it.  She  dif 
fered  from  them  positively.  "What  do  I  do  that  is 
wrong?"  she  urged.  "I  hope  I  behave  like  a  lady;  I 
mean  to  do  so."  Who  that  knows  anything  of  her  will 
question  that  she  did?  But  she  was  working  for  a  great 
cause  and  she  did  not  mean  to  let  trifles  stand  in  her 
way.  "  My  heart  is  sick,"  she  cried ;  "  my  soul  is  pained 
with  this  empty  gentility,  this  genteel  nothingness.  I  am 
doing  a  great  work.  I  cannot  come  down." 13 

Of  course  there  were  discouragements,  crying  spells, 
no  doubt,  as  in  the  earlier  days ;  times  when  everything 
went  wrong,  and  the  world  seemed  utterly  indifferent. 
The  very  vastness  of  the  hope  made  it  shadowy,  and 
she  had  her  lurking  possibilities  of  scepticism.  "I 
always  fear  when  I  find  my  heart  thus  clinging  to  the 
hope  of  future  good."14  There  was  physical  collapse, 
too,  under  such  enormous  effort,  even  in  a  body  mainly 
healthy.  For  two  or  three  days,  sometimes,  she  would 
give  herself  up  to  a  state  of  partial  stupor,  forgetting 
even  hope  and  duty  in  an  absolute  relaxation  of  all 
nervous  energy. 

Then  she  would  emerge,  with  fatigue  and  depression 
behind  her,,  ready  to  face  any  difficulty  and  overcome 
any  obstacle.  "  It  is  one  of  the  nicest  of  mental  opera- 


MARY  LYON  75 

tions,"  she  said,  "to  distinguish  between  what  is  very 
difficult  and  what  is  utterly  impossible/'15  But  what 
was  impossible  to  others  was  apparently  only  difficult 
to  her.  Walls  hardly  built  and  hardly  paid  for  might 
fall  down,  and  her  only  comment  was  one  of  delight 
that  no  one  was  hurt.  Stupid  and  obstinate  people 
might  oppose  her  methods,  but  somehow  or  other  she 
accomplished  the  result.  "She  made  the  impression 
on  every  one  with  whom  she  had  anything  to  do,  from 
the  common  day-laborer  to  the  president  of  a  college, 
that  if  she  set  herself  to  do  anything,  it  was  of  no  use 
to  oppose  her." 18 

This  does  not  mean  that  she  was  rough  or  overbear 
ing  in  her  methods,  that  she  forced  money  out  of 
pockets,  or  souls  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  She  had, 
indeed,  her  share  of  the  prophet's  severity.  If  she  had 
let  herself  go,  she  might  have  reprehended  and  repri 
manded  with  a  righteous  scorn.  In  one  wealthy  house 
hold,  where  she  had  expected  much,  she  got  nothing, 
and  to  friends  who  had  foretold  her  failure  she  con 
fided,  with  bitterness :  "  They  live  in  a  costly  house ;  it 
is  full  of  costly  things;  they  wear  costly  clothes,  but 
oh,  they're  little  bits  of  folks!"17 

Such  bitterness  she  mainly  kept  to  herself,  however. 
She  knew  that  her  progress  must  be  slow,  often  hin- 


76      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

dered,  and  often  tortuous.  She  disciplined  herself  not 
to  hope  too  much  and  to  forget  disappointments.  She 
practiced  infinite  patience.  "  I  learned  twenty  years  ago 
never  to  get  out  of  patience."18  She  would  not  dispute 
or  argue.  She  would  state  her  position,  her  plans,  her 
prospects.  She  would  answer  every  question  which 
really  tended  to  clarify.  Then  the  conscience  of  her 
hearers  was  left  to  work  by  itself.  Attacks,  abuse,  sar 
casm,  slander,  touched  her  not.  She  did  not  deserve 
them,  why  should  she  heed  them  ?  They  distressed  her 
friends,  and  one  of  the  closest,  Professor  Hitchcock, 
wrote  an  answer  which  he  submitted  to  Miss  Lyon's 
consideration.  "That  was  the  last  I  ever  saw  of  it/' 
he  said.19 

Instead  of  this  sharper  combativeness,  she  worked 
by  persuasion,  by  insinuation,  by  tact  and  sympathy. 
She  would  not  yield  a  syllable  of  her  main  theory;  but 
if  anything  was  to  be  gained  by  meeting  criticism  in  a 
detail,  by  accepting  a  minor  suggestion,  she  was  always 
ready.  "In  deviating  from  others,"  she  advised,  "be 
as  inoffensive  as  possible;  excite  no  needless  opposi 
tion"20  She  excited  none,  where  it  could  be  avoided, 
and  people  found  themselves  agreeing  with  her  before 
they  knew  it,  and  almost  against  their  will.  She  con 
quered  less  by  formal  argument  than  by  personal  charm, 


MARY  LYON  77 

and  had  the  golden  faculty  of  making  others  feel  that 
her  will  was  their  own.  One  who  knew  her  well  said 
that  she  held  men  "by  invisible  attractions  which  it 
was  hard  to  resist  and  from  which  very  few  wished  to 
be  released." 21  Another  simpler  mind  put  it  still  better : 
"  I  would  have  done  anything  she  asked  me  to.  Every 
body  would/' 22 

The  habit  of  getting  what  she  wanted  from  others 
came  naturally.  That  of  making  use  of  what  she  got, 
perhaps  somewhat  less  so.  She  had  to  train  herself  a 
little  in  business  methods.  This  a  clear  and  sound 
brain  can  always  do,  and  she  did  it.  But  order  and 
system  and  punctuality  seem  at  first  to  have  been  diffi 
cult  for  her.  She  was  not  born  neat  and  tidy  in  trifles. 
Some  women's  things,  she  said,  seemed  to  have  feet 
and  to  know  their  right  places  and  return  to  them  of 
their  own  accord.  Hers  did  not.  She  was  not  born 
punctual  or  with  a  consciousness  of  time.  If  she  got 
interested  in  a  task,  she  wanted  to  finish  it,  regardless 
of  the  arrival  of  the  hour  for  doing  something  else. 
She  wanted  to  go  to  bed  when  she  pleased,  to  get  up 
when  she  pleased;  not  at  a  set  and  given  minute. 

But  she  understood  these  weaknesses,  and  had  con 
quered  them  in  all  essentials,  before  she  entered  upon 
her  great  work.  If  she  was  not  born  a  woman  of  busi- 


y8      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

ness,  she  made  herself  one,  and  she  had  overcome  inner 
obstacles  before  she  began  her  fight  with  those  with 
out.  Therefore  she  was  able,  not  only  to  raise  the 
sums  she  needed,  but  to  use  them  wisely;  and,  after 
innumerable  difficulties,  in  the  autumn  of  1837,  Mount 
Holyoke  Seminary  was  opened. 

It  was  a  day  of  triumph  for  Miss  Lyon  —  of  pure, 
personal  triumph,  of  course  it  was.  She  would  not  have 
been  human  if  it  had  not  been.  She  had  labored  through 
years  of  toil  and  vexation.  Now  at  last  the  way  was 
clear  to  accomplish  what  she  had  dreamed.  Of  an 
earlier  time  of  prosperity  she  says:  "There  is  an  un 
usual  evenness  and  uniformity  in  my  feelings,  freedom 
from  excitement,  or  any  rising  above  the  common 
level."23  But  on  that  November  day  in  1837  her  spirits 
certainly  did  rise  above  the  common  level.  She  saw 
all  that  she  had1  longed  for  and  hoped  for  realized  in 
that  plain,  square  building  with  its  vast  possibilities, 
and  her  words  have  the  inspiration  of  a  prophetess: 
"The  stones  and  brick  and  mortar  speak  a  language 
which  vibrates  through  my  very  soul."24 

Ill 

So  she  had  performed  her  huge  task,  her  practically 
single-handed  task,  of  preparing  the  material  facilities 


MARY   LYON  79 

for  extending  education.  Now  came  the  subtle  and 
complicated  labor  of  conveying  it.  And  first  as  to  the 
negative  problem,  so  to  speak,  that  of  discipline.  This 
considerable  body  of  girls  had  been  brought  together, 
unaccustomed  to  the  restraints  of  community  life.  How 
to  train  them  to  do  their  best  work  without  injuring 
themselves  or  each  other? 

To  begin  with,  Miss  Lyon  did  not  believe  too  much 
in  formal  rules.  Of  course  a  certain  number  of  sucH 
rules  was  necessary,  as  always.  But  she  endeavored 
to  impress  upon  her  girls  the  spirit  of  those  rules  and 
not  the  letter.  She  brought  home  to  them  vividly  the 
struggle  between  the  body  and  the  mind,  and  the  ab 
solute  necessity  of  making  the  mind  master  at  the  start. 
"  The  mind/'  she  told  them,  "  should  not  sit  down  and 
wash  the  body's  feet,  but  the  body  should  obey  the 
mind."25 

So  in  relations  with  others.  It  was  not  so  much  a 
question  of  following  rules  as  of  getting  into  the  right 
tone.  "  Avoid  trying  the  patience  or  irritating  the  feel 
ings  of  others," 26  she  reminded  them.  She  made  her  pre 
cise  directions  flow  from  such  general  precepts  as  these. 

Then  she  trusted  the  girls  to  carry  them  out.  Of 
course,  they  could  not  always  be  trusted,  and  she  knew 
that  they  could  not.  They  were  human  and  young  and 


8o      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

girls,  and  had  their  weaknesses.  Dress  and  boys  were 
in  their  thoughts,  as  they  always  have  been  and  always 
will  be.  But  something  about  Miss  Lyon's  presence 
took  the  place  of  rules  —  something  about  the  thought 
of  her  presence.  "  One  could  not  do  wrong  where  she 
was/' 27  writes  one  pupil.  There  were  occasionally  those 
who  could  do  wrong  and  did,  either  from  carelessness 
or  even  from  contumacy.  With  them  Miss  Lyon  had 
such  vigor  as  was  needed.  Read  the  quaint  old  biog 
rapher's  account  of  the  forcible  removal  of  one  young 
woman  from  one  room  to  another :  " '  You  must  go  into 
the  large  room/  said  the  teacher."  The  young  woman 
went.28 

But  usually  the  reliance  was  less  upon  coercion  than 
upon  persuasion.  "  She  will  try  to  make  us  vote  so- 
and-so,  and  I  won't  vote  that  way — I  won't," 29  said  one 
recalcitrant  to  another  as  they  prepared  to  listen  to  her 
gentle  exhortation.  Then  they  voted  as  she  wished. 
Above  all,  her  discipline  was  dynamic,  consisted  in  instill 
ing  a  bewitching  impluse  to  do  things,  not  to  avoid  things. 
"Our  happiness  lies  largely  in  remembering/'  she  said; 
"do  what  will  be  pleasant  to  remember."  And  what 
ever  you  do,  put  life  into  it.  Do  not  half  do,  or  do 
negligently.  "Learn  to  sit  with  energy."30  Did  ever 
any  one  put  more  character  into  a  phrase  than  that? 


MARY   LYON  81 

And  as  they  were  taught  energy,  so  they  were  taught 
the  use  of  it  by  order  and  method.  Hours  should  be 
planned  and  kept  and  followed.  "I  have  suffered  all 
my  life  from  the  want  of  regular  habits,"  she  told  her 
girls;  "I  wish  you  to  accustom  yourselves  to  be  thor 
oughly  systematic  in  the  division  of  your  time  and 
duties."31  Train  and  discipline  the  mind,  she  urged 
upon  them,  govern  your  thoughts.  "Bring  the  mind 
to  a  perfect  abstraction  and  let  thought  after  thought 
pass  through  it." 32 

She  herself  was  ardent,  full  of  emotion,  full  of  im 
pulse.  "I  endeavor  daily  to  avoid  excessive  emotions 
on  any  subject," 33  she  says.  She  was  not  always  suc 
cessful,  and  admitted  it;  but  she  wanted  those  who 
learned  from  her  to  be  better  than  she.  Even  in  giv 
ing,  in  charity,  which  meant  so  much  to  her,  she 
advised  restraint  and  intelligence.  "  If  you  had  really 
rather  spend  your  money  on  yourselves,  spend  it."  Do 
not  overdo  from  the  impulse  of  the  moment.  "  I  don't 
want  artificial  fire."34  In  short,  she  was  as  anxious 
to  make  progress  solid  and  sure  as  to  establish  it  upon 
an  undying  enthusiasm.  "  Character,"  she  told  those 
incorrigible  workers  of  samplers,  "like  embroidery,  is 
made  stitch  by  stitch." 35 

From  all  this  you  gather  perhaps  an  impression  of 


82      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

pedantry,  of  formal  priggishness.  It  is  true  that,  as 
we  look  back  from  the  familiarity  of  to-day,  Miss  Lyon's 
methods  and  manners  sometimes  seem  stiff,  like  her 
caps.  Her  girls  to  her  were  always  "  young  ladies/' 
as  their  contemporaries  of  the  other  sex  were  "  young 
'gentlemen/'  Her  phraseology  was  elaborate,  and  she 
wished  others  to  use  the  same.  In  her  portraits  one 
perceives  a  certain  primness,  and  the  undeniable  beauty 
has  also  an  undeniable  suggestign  of  austerity.  If  haste 
made  her  sometimes  forget  to  fasten  a  button  or  adjust 
a  tie,  one  imagines  her  upon  any  state  occasion  as  com 
plete  in  her  dignity  as  Queen  Elizabeth  herself. 

But  brief  study  suffices  to  penetrate  beneath  this 
superficial  stiffness  and  form.  "It  is  very  important 
a  teacher  should  not  be  schoolified," 36  said  Miss  Lyon 
to  her  pupils. 

Many  teachers  say  this,  not  so  many  practice  it.  She 
did.  Under  the  formal  garb  and  manner,  she  was  es 
sentially  human.  In  the  first  place,  she  had  the  keen 
est  insight  into  human  strength  and  weakness.  She 
knew  the  heart,  or  at  least  knew  that  none  of  us  know 
it,  and  was  ever  alive  to  opportunities  to  increase  her 
knowledge.  In  one  case  she  comments  with  the  keenest 
analysis  upon  the  weaknesses  of  a  relative,  and  then 
apologizes  for  doing  so;  "only  I  love  to  remark  the 


MARY  LYON  83 

extreme  unlikeness  in  members  of  the  same  family." 3T 
In  general,  the  good  qualities  impress  her  most/though 
she  notes  this  with  due  reserve:  "On  the  whole,  as  I 
grow  in  years,  I  have  a  better  opinion  of  people." 88 

But  her  humanity  went  far  deeper  than  mere  obser 
vation  and  insight.  Under  the  formal  outside  there  was 
the  most  sensitive  affection  and  tenderness.  She  loved 
her  pupils  as  if  they  were  her  daughters,  felt  as  if  she 
must  supply  the  mother's  place  to  every  one  of  them. 

"You  are  spoiling  that  child,"  said  her  teachers,  of 
one  whom  she  petted,  though  she  never  really  showed 
any  favoritism.  Her  answer  was :  "  Well,  she  is  young 
and  far  from  her  mother,  and  I  am  sorry  for  her,  and 
I  don't  believe  it  will  hurt  her." 39 

This  was  only  one  instance  out  of  many.  When  girls 
were  solitary  and  homesick  and  weary  and  discour 
aged,  she  could  and  did  sympathize,  for  she  had  known 
all  those  things  herself  and  went  back  readily  to  the 
days  when  she  had  said  that  she  had  "  but  just  physical 
strength  enough  left  to  bear  her  home,  just  intellect: 
enough  to  think  the  very  small  thoughts  of  a  little 
infant,  and  just  emotion  enough  to  tremble  under  the 
shock."40 

In  short,  she  had  the  supreme  element  of  sympathy, 
the  power  of  always  putting  one's  self  in  the  place  of 


84      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

another.  Nothing  can  be  of  greater  help  to  a  teacher 
or  to  any  leader  of  men  or  women  than  this,  and  saying 
after  saying  of  Miss  Lyon's  shows  how  richly  she  was 
endowed  with  it.  The  brief  remarks  and  comments 
gathered  at  the  end  of  Miss  Fidelia  Fiske's  quaint  little 
volume  of  "Recollections"  are  the  best  illustration  of 
what  I  mean.  "  More  than  nine  tenths  of  the  suffering 
we  endure  is  because  those  around  us  do  not  show  that 
regard  for  us  which  we  think  they  ought  to/'41  This 
bit  of  wisdom,  curiously  exaggerated  for  a  thinker  so 
careful  as  Miss  Lyon,  is  as  interesting  for  what  it  sug 
gests  about  herself  as  about  her  study  and  comprehen 
sion  of  others. 

With  the  sympathetic  and  imaginative  power  of  put 
ting  one's  self  in  the  place  of  others  is  apt  to  go  a  large 
and  fine  sense  of  humor.  Had  Miss  Lyon  this?  It  is 
amusing  to  see  how  answers  vary.  Some  of  the  numer 
ous  pupils  who  have  written  reminiscences  of  her  insist 
that  she  had  no  humor  at  all,  that  she  rarely,  if  ever, 
smiled,  and  took  life  always  from  the  serious  side. 
Others  are  equally  positive  that  she  was  ready  for  a 
jest,  and  on  occasion  could  twinkle  with  merriment. 
The  explanation  of  these  conflicting  views  probably  is 
that  she  was  very  different  with  different  people.  Some 
persons  have  the  faculty  of  cherishing  the  warm  flame 


MARY  LYON  85 

of  humor,  of  teasing  even  fretted  spirits  into  bright  and 
gracious  gayety.  Others  put  out  that  pleasant  flame  as 
a  snuffer  puts  out  a  candle.  I  have  known  pupils  of 
Miss  Lyon  with  whom  I  am  sure  that  she  was  always 
as  serious  as  the  bird  of  Pallas. 

Then,  too,  she  was  brought  up  in  an  age  that  re 
strained  laughter.  As  a  teacher,  she  knew  the  danger 
of  satire,  and  herself  admitted  that  she  had  to  be  on 
her  guard  against  her  appreciation  of  the  ludicrous, 
lest  she  should  do  irreparable  damage  to  sensitive  hearts. 
Moreover,  the  Puritan  strain  was  strong  in  her  and 
she  shied  at  any  suggestion  of  uncontrolled  gayety  for 
herself  or  those  she  guided.  "  It  is  not  true,"  insists  an 
admiring  pupil,  "that  Miss  Lyon  enjoyed  fun!  .  .  .  'Fun/ 
she  said, '  is  a  word  no  young  lady  should  use/  " 42 

Yet  I  dare  swear  that  she  enjoyed. fun  just  the  same; 
that  she  could  see  a  joke,  and  take  and  make  a  joke. 
One  would  certainly  not  say  of  her,  in  the  dainty  phrase 
of  the  old  poet, — 

"Her  heart  was  full  of  jigs  and  her  feet  did  wander 
Even  as  autumn's  dust." 

But,  at  any  rate  in  youth,  before  care  settled  too 
heavily,  she  was  capable  of  full-lunged,  resounding 
cachinnation.  "  Mr.  Pomeroy's  father  has  heard  Miss 
Lyon,  when  a  girl,  laugh  half  a  mile  away,  from  one 


86      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

hill  to  another.  Once  she  laughed  so  loud  she  scared 
the  colts  in  the  field  and  made  them  run  away." 43 

Now,  isn't  that  jolly?  In  later  years  she  did  not, 
indeed,  scare  the  colts  or  the  coltish  young  ladies,  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  large  possibilities  of  spiritual 
laughter  lightened  the  troubles  and  vexations  that 
were  inseparable  from  her  triumph.  To  be  sure,  she 
sometimes  fell  into  strange  freaks  of  professional  sol 
emnity,  such  as  seem  quite  inconsistent  with  any  sense 
of  humor  at  all,  as  when  she  cautioned  her  young 
ladies:  "The  violation  of  the  seventh  commandment 
may  and  ought  to  be  examined  as  a  general  subject, 
but  beware  of  learning  particulars ";44  or  again: 
"  Choose  the  society  of  such  gentlemen  as  will  converse 
without  even  once  seeming  to  think  that  you  are  a 
lady."45  But  I  believe  the  winking  of  an  eye  would 
have  made  her  see  the  humorous  slant  of  these  sug 
gestions.  She  saw  it  in  regard  to  many  others,  and 
especially  in  regard  to  that  most  delicate  of  humorous 
tests,  the  absurdity  of  one's  self.  Is  there  not  a  depth 
of  humor  in  her  overheard  remark,  as  she  stood  before 
the  mirror  trying  to  tie  her  bonnet-strings:  "Well,  I 
may  fail  of  heaven,  but  I  shall  be  very  much  disap 
pointed  if  I  do — very  much  disappointed."46 

All  this  analysis  of  Miss  Lyon's  educational  influ- 


MARY   LYON  87 

ence,  her  discipline,  her  method,  her  sympathy,  her 
laughter,  does  not  catch  the  entire  depth  and  power 
of  it.  We  must  add  the  magnetism,  the  gift  of  inspira 
tion.  She  could  draw  money  out  of  men's  pockets ;  she 
could  draw  folly  out  of  girls'  souls  and  put  thought 
and  earnest  effort  in  its  place.  Never  give  up,  she 
taught  them;  never  submit,  never  be  beaten.  "Teach 
till  you  make  a  success  of  it." 47  Live  with  high  ideas, 
she  taught  them;  make  noble  dreams  noble  realities. 
"  Our  thoughts  have  the  same  effect  on  us  as  the  com 
pany  we  keep."48  When  you  have  a  great  object  in 
view,  let  no  obstacle,  no  difficulty,  distract  you  from  it. 
"  Go  where  no  one  else  is  willing  to  go ;  do  what  no  one 
else  is  willing  to  do." 49 

And  she  herself  never  forgot  the  greatest  test  of 
teaching;  did  her  best  to  keep  it  before  all  who  assisted 
her  and  worked  under  her.  "  Make  the  dull  ones  think 
once  a  day,  make  their  eyes  sparkle  once  a  day." 50  The 
teacher  who  can  do  this  has  indeed  magnetism,  has  in 
spiration.  She  did  it,  perhaps  many  times  a  day. 

IV 

IT  is  interesting  that  the  enthusiasm  of  scholarship 
proper  is  not  a  marked  element  in  Miss  Lyon.  She 
had  an  immense  desire  to  educate  herself ;  later,  an  im- 


88      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

mense  desire  to  educate  others.  It  does  not  appear 
that  in  youth  or  in  age  she  was  overpowered  by  the 
passion  for  acquiring  knowledge  as  an  end  merely. 
Now  and  then  she  has  words  that  seem  to  belie  this. 
"  There  are  peculiar  sweets  derived  from  gaining  knowl 
edge,  delights  known  only  to  those  who  have  tested 
them/'51  she  says.  She  pursued  all  varieties  of  study, 
with  equal  ardor.  Mathematics,  logic,  science,  litera 
ture, —  she  was  at  home  in  all,  delighted  to  talk  about 
them,  delighted  to  teach  them.  But  you  feel  instantly: 
the  difference  between  her  and,  for  example,  Mrs. 
Samuel  Ripley,  in  this  regard.  Mrs.  Ripley  followed 
all  studies  because  they  were  all  in  themselves  equally 
delightful.  Miss  Lyon  followed  them  all  because  they 
were  all,  comparatively  speaking,  indifferent.  To  Mrs. 
Ripley  knowledge  was  an  end  in  itself,  an  all-sufficing, 
inexhaustible  end.  To  Miss  Lyon  knowledge  was  only 
a  beginning.  Mathematics  and  all  the  rest  were  bright, 
sharp,  splendid  instruments.  The  first  thing  was  to  get 
them;  but  an  infinitely  more  important  thing  was  what 
you  could  do  with  them.  What  a  significant,  if  uninten 
tional,  revelation  there  is  in  the  phrase  I  have  already 
quoted  (italics  mine)  :  "In  my  youth  I  had  much  vigor 
—  was  always  aspiring  after  something.  /  called  it 
loving  to  study."*2  What  scorn  there  is  in  another 


MARY   LYON  89 

brief  phrase  of  her  later  years :  "  The  intellectual  miser 
is  an  object  of  contempt." B3 

No,  she  was  not  essentially  a  scholar ;  she  could  never 
have  been  content  to  spend  long  hours  and  long  years 
over  books  and  the  problems  of  books.  She  was  essen 
tially  and  by  every  instinct  a  teacher.  And  her  object 
in  teaching  was  not  to  make  other  scholars.  In  all  the 
great  volume  of  "Reminiscences"  contributed  by  her 
pupils,  pure  scholarship  fills  but  a  very  little  place. 
What  she  aimed  at  was  to  teach  girls,  not  to  know, 
but  to  live.  It  is  true,  her  biographer  says  that  in  her 
early  years  of  teaching  her  great  aim  was  to  make 
scholars.  But  even  so,  I  think  she  was  anxious  rather 
to  succeed  in  anything  she  had  undertaken  than  to  im 
part  the  fine  fury  of  intellectual  acquirement. 

And  as  time  went  on,  the  mere  lore  of  books  took  a 
more  and  more  subordinate  place.  Life  was  to  be 
studied,  character  was  to  be  studied,  all  the  curious, 
subtle,  surrounding  and  moulding  influences  that  govern 
our  existence.  "Make  as  much  effort  to  gain  knowl 
edge  from  objects  around  us,  from  passing  events,  and! 
from  conversation,  as  from  books." 54  She  labored  hard 
and  long  at  the  greatest  of  human  tasks,  —  that  of 
making  people  think  for  themselves.  "  Knowledge  and 
reflection,"  she  said,  "should  balance";  —  though  she 


90      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

added,  with  a  sigh,  that  "  all  we  can  do  in  this  matter, 
is  to  stand  about  the  outer  court  and  say,  "Won't  you 
reflect  ?'"55 

And  her  object  was  not  only  reflection,  but  reflection 
turned  into  conduct.  She  wanted  to  take  a  group  of 
bright  and  eager  spirits  from  the  great  middle  circle 
of  democracy  and  send  them  out  again  to  make  over 
the  world.  This  America,  as  she  then  saw  with  almost 
prophetic  vision,  needed  so  many  things,  some  con 
sciously  and  some  unconsciously.  She  wanted  her  girls 
to  do  something  toward  supplying  the  need.  "  We  have 
made  it  an  object,"  she  said,  "to  gain  enlarged  and 
correct  views  ...  as  to  what  needs  to  be  done,  what 
can  be  done,  what  ought  to  be  done;  and,  finally,  as  to 
what  is  our  duty/'56 

To  know  one's  duty,  in  the  largest  sense,  and  to  do 
it,  was  her  idea  of  education.  As  one  of  her  pupils 
expresses  it,  "her  first  aim  was  to  make  us  Christians* 
her  second  to  cultivate  us  intellectually."57  But  her 
own  phrase,  far  finer,  rings  like  a  trumpet:  "That  they 
should  live  for  God  and  do  something."58 

V 

HERE  we  have  the  essence  of  Miss  Lyon's  teaching,  of 
her  work  in  the  world,  of  her  own  heart,  —  that  they 


MARY   LYON  91 

should  live  for  God  and  do  something.  Is  it  not,  so 
far  as  it  goes,  a  splendid,  direct,'  and  simple  clue  to 
the  great  problem  of  education?  It  is,  perhaps,  for  the 
lack  of  such  a  clue  that  nowadays  we  grope  and 
flounder  so  dismally.  For  who  will  deny  that  in  all 
the  difficulties  that  beset  educative  theory  at  the  present 
day  the  greatest  is  that  we  do  not  know  what  we  want? 
The  old  convenient  standard  of  a  liberal  education  is 
slipping  from  us,  has  slipped  from  us  completely.  What 
are  we  to  put  in  the  place  of  it?  Two  at  least  of  our 
great  institutions  of  learning  have  mottoes  that  suggest: 
Miss  Lyon's,  "  Not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minis 
ter,"  and  "  For  Christ  and  the  Church."  But  we  can 
neither  agree  about  what  they  mean  nor  unite  to  apply 
them.  As  with  the  unhappily  married  couple  in  Mr. 
Ade's  Fable,  "  The  motto  in  the  dining-room  said,  '  Love 
one  another/  but  they  were  too  busy  to  read."  In 
stead,  we  turn  to  the  practical  issue  of  bread  and 
butter,  and  make  it  our  educational  ideal  to  train  men 
and  women  to  go  out  into  the  world  and  contend  with 
their  fellows  for  the  material  necessaries  of  life. 

Miss  Lyon's  aim  was  simpler  —  not  always  easy  to 
apply,  perhaps,  but  tangible,  and,  above  all,  inspiring 
from  its  very  nature:  That  they  should  live  for  God 
and  do  something.  But  to  understand  the  full  bearing 


92      PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

of  the  words,  we  must  consider  more  carefully  what 
God'  was  to  Miss  Lyon  herself. 

To  begin  with,  her  religion  was  not  a  matter  of  con 
vention,  not  a  mere  tradition  accepted  from  others  and 
passed  on  to  others  again,  without  an  intimate  grasp 
of  its  nature  and  meaning.  She  came  slowly  to  the 
fullness  and  ripeness  of  faith;  regretted  often  in  her 
early  years  that  the  divine  ecstasy  descended  less  amply 
upon  her  than  upon  some  more  favored.  She  abhorred 
pretense,  the  theory  of  feeling;  wanted  only  sentiments 
that  were  truly  hers.  How  admirable  is  her  confusion 
in  the  presence  of  great  natural  beauty :  "  I  feared  that 
I  should  be  unable  to  feel  the  soul-moving  power,  and 
I  had  an  ardent  desire  that  I  might  not  acknowledge, 
even  to  myself,  any  second-hand  emotions,  any  influ 
ence  which  did  not  affect  my  own  heart."59  Second 
hand  emotions!  Do  we  not  all  of  us  need  to  beware 
of  them? 

As  religion  took  fuller  possession  of  her,  she  did 
not  suffer  herself  to  be  unduly  exalted.  To  others  it 
seemed  to  come  with  ease  and  swiftness  of  glory.  It 
came  with  struggle  and  effort  and  long  agony  to  her. 
"In  view  of  invisible  and  divine  realities,  my  mind  is 
darkened,  my  preceptions  feeble,  my  heart  cold  and 
stupid.  It  seems  as  if  such  a  low,  groveling  worm  of 


MARY  LYON  93 

the  dust  could  never  be  fitted  for  heaven."60  There 
were  days  of  distress  and  discouragement,  days  of  bar 
renness,  if  not  of  doubt.  "Sometimes  I  almost  feel 
that  I  am  not  my  own,  but  I  find  my  heart  repeatedly 
desiring  those  things  from  which  I  had  almost  sup 
posed  it  was  forever  separated/' 

A  clear,  calm,  intellectual  analysis  was  so  natural  to 
her  that  she  was  tempted  to  apply  it  where  faith  and 
love  would  have  been  more  wholesome;  although,  in 
the  end,  with  the  author  of  the  "Imitation/*  she  finds 
that  "after  winter  comes  summer,  after  the  night  the 
day,  and  after  a  storm  a  great  calm."  "It  is  won 
derful  to  me  how  the  mind,  after  a  state  of  doubt 
and  difficulty  from  which  it  seemed  impossible  to  be 
extricated,  can,  without  any  new  light  or  new  evi 
dence,  settle  down  into  a  state  of  calm  and  quiet 
decision."62 

But  all  these  negative  elements  were  as  nothing  to 
the  joy  and  rapture  which  religion  gave  her.  She  was 
certainly  not  a  mystic  in  the  sense  of  pure  contempla 
tion.  Action  was  life  to  her,  her  soul  was  dynamic, 
and  her  conception  of  God  must  have  been  that  of  a 
full,  outflowing,  energetic,  creative  love.  But  this  en 
ergy  of  action  came  to  her,  seasoned  and  flavored  with 
rapturous  delight.  "I  love  sometimes,"  she  says,  "to 


94     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

lose  sight  of  individuals,  in  thinking  of  the  bundles  of 
eternal  life  and  happiness  that  are  bound  up  together 
in  heaven."63  And  again:  "But  amidst  the  darkness, 
and  with  a  burden  on  my  heart  which  I  cannot  de 
scribe,  there  is  something  in  my  soul  which  seems  like 
trust  in  God,  that  is  like  a  peaceful  river,  overflowing 
all  its  banks."64 

She  wanted  to  bathe  all  who  followed  her  in  this 
peaceful  river,  to  make  them  partakers  of  this  sustain 
ing  and  enduring  joy;  and  to  do  this,  she  wanted  to 
build  up  their  souls  on  an  assured  and  stable  founda 
tion  of  thought  and  devotion  and  self-control  and  self- 
sacrifice.  It  must  be  admitted  that  some  of  her  methods 
for  accomplishing  her  end  seem  to  us  now  strange  and 
a  little  repellent,  though  perhaps  they  were  none  the 
worse  for  that.  Even  to-day  some  persons  feel  that 
dancing  is  not  a  very  profitable  employment;  but  few 
would  go  so  far  as  Miss  Lyon:  "When  Satan  would 
spread  his  net  to  fascinate,  allure,  and  destroy,  he  never 
omits  the  dance."65  The  payment  *of  small  debts  is 
undoubtedly  desirable ;  but  it  is  making  a  serious  matter 
of  it  to  urge  that  "  it  might  be  impossible,  when,  praying 
for  some  one,  to  keep  out  of  mind  a  ten  cents  her  due." 66 
Again,  the  following  injunction  seems  a  little  porten 
tous,  though  eminently  appropriate  to  much  modern 


MARY   LYON  95 

youthful  reading:  "Never  read  a  book  without  first 
praying  over  it/'67 

These  extremes  make  us  smile.  Others  more  solemn 
make  us  tremble.  Miss  Lyon  believed  in  hell  with  all 
her  soul.  "If  she  had  ever  a  flitting  doubt  of  the 
certainty  of  future  retributions,  that  doubt  was  never 
known  or  suspected  by  her  most  intimate  friends." 68  She 
proposed  to  have  her  pupils  believe  in  hell  also.  She 
stood  before  them  in  chapel,  a  quiet,  prim  New  England 
lady,  and  made  hell  real.  "  It  was  the  warning  voice  of 
one  who  saw  the  yawning  gulf.  She  would  point  to  the, 
dark,  shelving,  fatal  precipice,  without  a  gesture,  with 
out  a  motion,  save  of  her  moving  lips,  her  hand  laid 
devoutly  on  that  well-worn  octavo  Bible.  She  would 
uncover  the  fiery  billows  rolling  below,  in  the  natural 
but  low,  deep  tones  with  which  men  talk  of  their 
wills,  their  coffins,  and  their  graves."69  And  this  to  a 
company  of  young  girls,  at  the  most  sensitive,  emotional 
age,  just  snatched  from  their  sheltering  homes  and  al 
ready  unhinged  by  novel  strains  of  every  kind.  It  seems 
to  us  like  saving  their  souls  at  fearful  peril  to  their 
bodies. 

Even  Miss  Lyon's  most  concrete  definition  of  educa 
tion,  so  often  quoted,  will  hardly  be  quoted  by  any  one 
to-day  without  a  smile  of  good-natured  amusement, — 


96     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

"  A  lady  should  be  so  educated  that  she  can  go  as  a  mis 
sionary  at  a  fortnight's  notice." 70 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  these  excesses,  I  believe  that  the 
essence  of  the  matter  was  with  Miss  Lyon.  The  minor 
drawbacks,  the  superficial  eccentricities,  —  even  hell, — 
fall  away,  and  leave  her  dominant  and  vital  with  the  su 
preme  object  of  all  her  thought  and  life,  which  was  God. 
Those  who  followed  her,  she  taught,  must  get  out  of 
themselves,  forget  themselves:  "How  much  happier 
you  would  be  to  live  in  a  thousand  lives  beside  yourself 
rather  than  to  live  in  yourself  alone!"71  They  must 
be  ready  to  give  all,  to  sacrifice  all,  to  endure  all,  for 
Christ  and  His  Kingdom :  "  Property,  education,  time, 
influence,  friends,  children,  brothers  and  sisters,  all 
should  be  devoted  to  this  object!"72  And  in  giving,  in 
sacrificing,  there  should  be  no  waywardness,  no  willful 
ness,  no  whim  of  the  individual.  "  Neither  teachers  nor 
scholars  should  have  any  way  of  their  own,  or  will  of 
their  own,  but  all  should  be  swallowed  up  in  the  will  of 
Cod."73 

Finally,  the  heart  of  the  whole  was  not  merely  doing, 
not  merely  the  devoted,  unremitting  effort  to  do  right, 
but  rapture  and  glory :  "  Our  minds  are  so  constituted 
that  nothing  but  God  can  fill  them." 74 

"There  is  but  one  thing  needful,"  said  Amiel,  "to 


MARY   LYON  97 

possess  God."  Miss  Lyon  thought  it  needful,  not  only 
to  possess  God  herself,  but  to  make  all  others  possess 
Him,  and  she  could  not  feel  her  own  possession  perfect 
when  she  was  not  laboring  at  this  magnificent,  if 
impossible,  task. 


IV 
HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE 


CHRONOLOGY 

Harriet  Elizabeth  Beecher. 

Born  in  Litchfield,  Connecticut,  June  14,  1811. 

At  school  in  Hartford,  1824. 

Converted,  1825. 

Taught  at  Hartford,  1827  to  1832. 

Went  to  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  to  teach,  1832. 

Married  Rev.  Calvin  E.  Stowe,  January  6,  1836. 

Removed  to  Brunswick,  Maine,  1850. 

"  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  published,  1852. 

Removed  to  Andover,  Massachusetts,  1852. 

In  Europe,  1853,  1856,  1859. 

Removed  to  Hartford,  1863. 

Mr.  Stowe  died  August,  1886. 

Died,  July  i,  1896. 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE 


IV 
HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE 

I 

SHE  was  a  little  woman,  rather  plain  than  beautiful, 
but  with  energy,  sparkle,  and  vivacity  written  all  over 
her.  I  always  think  of  her  curls,  but  they  were  not 
curls  of  coquetry  or  curls  of  sentiment;  they  were 
just  alive,  as  she  was,  and  danced  and  quivered  when 
she  nodded  and  glowed. 

The  first  half  of  the  nineteeth  century,  when  she 
was  growing  up,  was  still  the  age  of  ministers  in  New 
England,  and  she  was  of  a  ministerial  family,  grew 
up  in  that  atmosphere,  and  inherited  all  its  traditions. 
Only  she  preached  in  books,  not  from  the  pulpit.  She 
passed  her  youth  among  the  joys  and  torments  of  re 
ligion,  as  then  practiced.  She  married  and  had  children. 
Then  she  set  the  world  afire  with  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin/* 
made  money,  which  she  sorely  needed,  wrote  more 
books,  a  huge  number  of  them,  made  more  money  in 
proportion,  spent  it  with  much  generosity  and  some  joy, 
and  died,  perhaps  a  great  author,  certainly  having  been 
a  great  power  in  her  day. 


102     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

She  did  all  this  with  health  that  was  never  robust, 
never  reKabK  an4  often  wretched.  "  A  wisp  of  nerve/'  * 
she  call  a  herself;  and  she  was.  "  She  loved  more/'  says 
her  biographer,  "and  consequently  suffered  more 
than  others,  and  the  weight  of  her  suffering  was 
heavier  because  she  had  grown  up,  apparently,  almost 
without  care,  either  from  herself  or  others,  in  behalf 
of  her  body." 2  There  were  no  gymnasiums  for  girls  in 
those  days,  no  vigorous  outdoor  sports,  no  lithe,  swaying 
figures  and  red  cheeks;  only  samplers  and  prayer. 
Mrs.  Stowe  often  analyzed  these  conditions  in  her  char 
acters,  and  also  analyzed  them,  with  much  acuteness,  in 
herself.  "About  half  of  my  time  I  am  scarcely  alive, 
and  a  great  part  of  the  rest,  the  slave  and  sport  of 
morbid  feeling  and  unreasonable  prejudice.  I  have 
everything  but  good  health."  3 

But  do  not  suppose  that  she  let  morbid  fancies  or 
cringing  nerves  interfere  when  there  was  work  to  be 
done.  That  generation  had  its  weaknesses,  and  some 
times  cultivated  them;  but  it  could  trample  on  them, 
when  occasion  demanded,  and  even  forget  them.  Mrs. 
Stowe  was  an  excellent  manager,  careful  of  her  house 
hold,  careful  of  her  husband,  careful  of  her  children. 
She  could  be  up  early  and  down  late,  sew,  clean,  and 
cook,  plan  and  provide.  When  moving  had  to  be  at- 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  103 

tended  to,  she  bore  the  burden.  What  that  means, 
every  housekeeper  knows. 

She  appreciated  the  importance  of  order  and  system  in 
a  family :  "  I  know  that  nothing  can  be  done  without  it; 
it  is  the  keystone,  the  sine  qua  non,  and  in  regard  to  my 
children  I  place  it  next  to  piety." 4  She  gives  an  amus 
ing  picture  of  her  efforts  to  apply  this  principle  in  estab 
lishing  a  new  home :  furniture  men  flying  about,  servants 
calling,  assistants  suggesting,  everything  to  be  3one, 
and  nobody  ready  to  do  it.5  Nerves  were  evidently  out 
of  place  in  such  a  scene  as  this,  and  she  whipped  them 
into  submission  —  could  even  make  fun  when,  in  the 
midst  of  it,  she  received  from  her  husband  a  letter,  sat 
urated  with  gloom,  warning  her  that  he  could  not  live 
long,  wondering  what  she  could  do  as  a  widow,  and 
urging  prudence,  as  she  would  not  have  much  to  live  on. 
Prudence !  With  big  freight-bills  to  pay  and  the  children 
clamoring  for  steak  to  sustain  them  through  their  labors ! 

When  these  whirlwinds  of  achievement  are  over,  the 
nerves  revenge  themselves.  Nerves  usually  do.  She  has 
times  of  depression  so  deep  that  she  hardly  seems  to  live: 
"  All  I  wanted  was  to  get  home  and  die.  Die  I  was  very 
sure  I  should,  at  any  rate,  but  I  suppose  I  was  never  less 
prepared  to  do  so."6  Again,  "I  let  my  plants  die  by  inches 
before  my  eyes,  and  do  not  water  them,  and  I  dread 


104    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

everything  I  do,  and  wish  it  was  not  to  be  done." T  Yet, 
even  in  these  depths,  if  there  is  a  call  from  others  in 
greater  misery,  she  can  respond,  sometimes  with  sooth 
ing  tenderness,  sometimes  with  cheerful  rallying.  When 
her  husband  writes  to  her  in  utter  despair,  the  sympathy 
of  her  answer  is  disguised  in  gentle  mockery.  "My 
dear  Soul,  I  received  your  most  melancholy  effusion,  and 
I  am  sorry  to  find  it 's  just  so.  I  entirely  agree  and  sym 
pathize.  Why  didn't  you  engage  the  two  tombstones  — 
one  for  you  and  one  for  me  ?  " 8 

This  gayety,  which  she  could  apply  to  her  own 
troubles,  of  course  made  her  delightful  to  others,  and 
socially  she  was  popular  and  much  sought  after.  Like 
most  persons  of  sensitive  temperament  and  nervous 
organization,  she  at  once  liked  society  and  shunned  it. 
The  instinct  of  avoiding  people,  of  remaining  shut  up 
within  herself,  was  strong  in  her,  and  she  had  to  make 
an  effort  to  overcome  it:  "I  am  trying  to  cultivate  a 
general  spirit  of  kindliness  towards  everybody.  Instead 
of  shrinking  into  a  corner  to  notice  how  other  people 
behave,  I  am  holding  out  my  hand  to  the  right  and  to  the 
left,  and  forming  casual  or  incidental  acquaintances 
with  all  who  will  be  acquainted  with  me."  9  She  culti 
vates  the  habit  of  speaking  to  disagreeable  people,  to 
nonentities,  and  finding  the  good  that  can  surely  be 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  105 

found  in  them.  Also,  she  feels  the  intense  excitement 
of  social  intercourse,  with  its  consequent  fatigue  and 
reaction:  "I  believe  it  would  kill  me  dead  to  live  long 
in  the  way  I  have  been  doing  since  I  have  been  here. 
It  is  a  sort  of  agreeable  delirium." 10 

In  the  main  she  likes  people.  Instead  of  saying,  with 
Madame  de  Staal-Delaunay,  that  she  is  always  glad 
to  make  new  friends  because  she  knows  they  cannot  be 
worse  than  the  old,  she  declares  that  she  leaves  Bruns 
wick  with  regret,  because  she  shall  never  find  friends 
whom  she  likes  better  than  those  she  has  made  there. 

And  men  and  women  liked  her,  because  she  liked 
them.  She  entered  many  circles  and  mingled  with  all 
sorts  of  people,  and  everywhere  she  was  received  with 
esteem  and  affection.  She  herself  speaks  of  the  singu 
lar  charm  and  fascination  of  her  brother,  Henry  Ward 
Beecher :  "  He  has  something  magnetic  about  him  that 
makes  everybody  crave  his  society — that  makes  men 
follow  and  worship  him/'11  The  magnetism  in  her 
case  was  by  no  means  so  marked;  but  it  was  there,  and 
very  many  found  it  irresistible. 

If  she  was  popular  in  general  society  and  was  liked 
by  others  because  she  liked  them,  much  more  had  she 
a  tender  and  devoted  affection  in  the  most  intimate  re 
lations  of  life.  "There  is  a  heaven,"  she  says,  "a 


io6    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

heaven  —  a  world  of  love,  and  love  after  all  is  the  life- 
blood,  the  existence,  the  all  in  all  of  mind." 12  And  in  a 
simpler  and  even  more  penetrating  phrase,  she  shows 
how  thoroughly  she  had  experienced  what  she  estimates 
so  highly :  "  Oh,  Mary,  we  never  know  how  we  love  till 
we  try  to  unlove/' 13 

Her  devotion  to  her  father  and  to  her  brothers  and 
sisters  was  constant  and  unfailing.  Perhaps  the  nearest 
of  them  all  to  her  was  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  the 
strength  of  her  love  for  him  appears  strikingly  in  the 
letters  written  in  regard  to  his  greatest  trial.  She  not 
only  rejects  all  possible  doubt  as  to  his  innocence  and 
purity,  but  rejects  it  with  a  whole-hearted  conviction 
which  it  is  difficult  to  resist.  He  is  herself,  she  says,  and 
she  feels  a  blow  at  him  more  than  she  would  feel  it  at 
herself. 

Her  children  she  loved  and  tended  an3  cared  for,  en 
tering  into  all  the  interests  of  their  lives  and  being  pros 
trated  by  their  illness  or  death.  It  certainly  could  not 
be  said  of  her  that  she  was  a  writer  before  she  was  a 
mother :  "  My  children  I  would  not  change  for  all  the 
ease,  leisure,  and  pleasure  that  I  could  have  without 
them." 14  Like  all  persons  of  deep  and  sensitive  natures, 
she  feels  the  utmost  difficulty  in  expressing  affection. 
What  are  those  strange,  those  insurmountable  barriers 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  107 

that  make  it  impossible  for  the  tenderness  that  fills  our 
hearts  to  overflow  our  lips,  so  that  we  meet  our  dearest 
with  a  jest,  or  a  quip,  or  a  casual  comment,  instead  of 
the  sincere  outpouring  of  passionate  devotion?  How 
many  of  us  can  echo  Mrs.  Stowe's  words :  "  As  for  ex 
pression  of  affection  .  .  .  the  stronger  the  affection, 
the  less  inclination  have  I  to  express  it.  Yet  sometimes 
I  think  myself  the  most  frank,  open,  and  communica 
tive  of  beings,  and  at  other  times  the  most  reserved." 15 
How  many  of  us,  again,  resolve,  as  she  did,  when  a 
friend  mourned  over  not  having  told  a  lost  child  how 
much  she  loved  him,  that  we  will  not  make  the  same 
mistake,  but  will  give  our  feelings  full  expression,  while 
there  is  yet  time?  The  time  passes,  till  it  grows  too 
late,  and  all  against  our  will  our  lips  are  sealed. 

The  3epth  and  the  varying  phases  of  Mrs.  Stowe's 
love  of  her  husband  are  naturally  not  fully  seen  in  her 
published  letters.  That  she  did  love  him,  both  before 
marriage  and  after,  is  evident  enough.  With  the 
writer's  instinct  of  analysis,  she  makes  a  curious  dis 
section  of  her  feelings  to  a  friend,  half  an  hour  before 
her  wedding :  "  Well,  my  dear,  I  have  been  dreading  and 
"dreading  the  time,  and  lying  awake  wondering  how  I 
should  live  through  this  overwhelming  crisis,  and  lo !  it 
has  come,  and  I  feel  nothing  at  all."19  But  neither  the 


io8    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

dread  nor  the  indifference  indicates  any  doubt  or  coldness 
as  to  Professor  Stowe.  When  she  writes  of  him  to  others, 
it  is  with  a  warm  efflorescence  of  praise.  His  tenderness 
enwraps  her,  his  enthusiasm  upholds  her,  his  confidence 
sustains  her.  When  she  writes  to  him  directly,  their 
mutual  understanding  and  intimate  affection  are  obvious 
in  every  line.  Amusing  stories  are  told  of  his  occasional 
assertion  of  being  something  more  than  Mrs.  Stowe's 
husband;  but  these  never  imply  any  jealousy  or  undue 
sensitiveness  in  one  who  was  well  qualifie3  to  play  his 
part  in  life  without  being  the  husband  of  anybody. 


II 

LIKE  many  writers,  and  some  who  have  been  among 
the  most  successful,  Mrs.  Stowe  was  neither  a  great 
scholar  nor  a  great  reader  of  the  writings  of  others. 
She  speaks  of  her  enjoyment  in  early  childhood  of  the 
poetry  of  Scott.  Later,  after  looking  in  dismay  at  the 
appalling  collection  of  theology  in  her  father's  library, 
she  was  able  to  divert  herself  with  the  odd  agglomera 
tion  of  fact  and  fancy  in  Mather's  "Magnalia."  As 
her  education  went  on,  she  of  course  became  familiar 
with  the  standard  books  which,  as  names  at  any  rate, 
are  known  to  intelligent  people.  She  also  read  curi- 


HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE          109 

ously  such  writings  of  contemporaries  as  appealed  to 
her  quick  and  eager  spirit.  But  she  createcl  her  own 
work  from  what  she  saw  in  life,  not  from  what  she 
found  in  books.  She  had  neither  the  vast  zest  for 
knowledge  as  such  which  is  so  evident  in  Margaret  Ful 
ler  and  Sarah  Ripley,  nor  the  enthusiasm  for  education 
as  a  moral  agent  which  animated  Mary  Lyon.  Quota 
tions  and  literary  references  are  not  frequent  in  her 
letters  or  in  her  formal  writings.  It  is  the  same  with 
artistic  matters  generally.  In  later  years  European 
travel  trained  her  to  a  good  deal  of  interest  in  pictures 
and  architecture.  But  her  temperament  was  not  natu 
rally  aesthetic,  nor  was  it  especially  susceptible  to 
emotional  stimulus  from  painting  or  music. 

The  great  activity,  the  really  vital  and  vivid  manifes 
tation  of  her  spiritual  life,  was  in  religion.  When  she 
was  twelve  years  old,  she  wrote  a  composition  entitled, 
"Can  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul  be  proved  by  the 
Light  of  Nature?"  It  is  a  truly  appalling  production 
for  a  child  of  that  age  —  not  in  itself,  but  when  one 
thinks  of  all  it  meant  in  the  way  of  wearing,  haunting, 
morbid  spiritual  discipline  and  suggestion. 

The  young  person  of  to-day  cannot  realize  what  tfiese 
religious  problems  were  to  the  young  person  of  one  hun 
dred  years  ago.  The  atmosphere  which  was  breathed 


i  io    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

from  morning  to  night  was  loaded  with  discussion  and 
controversy.  Nobody  understood  this  better  than  Mrs. 
Stowe,  or  has  depicted  it  more  powerfully.  "  On  some 
natures,"  she  says,  "  theology  operates  as  a  subtle 
poison;  and  the  New  England  theology  in  particular, 
with  its  intense  clearness,  its  sharp-cut  crystalline  edges 
and  needles  of  thought,  has  had  in  a  peculiar  degree  the 
power  of  lacerating  the  nerves  of  the  soul,  and  produc 
ing  strange  states  of  morbid  horror  and  repulsion."17 
Elsewhere  she  puts  this  influence  even  more  forcibly: 
"With  many  New  England  women  at  this  particular 
period,  when  life  was  so  retired  and  so  cut  off  from  out 
ward  sources  of  excitement,  thinking  grew  to  be  a 
disease."18 

If  such  statements  were  true  in  general,  even  of  girls 
who  had  the  ordinary  surroundings  of  this  world  and 
were  not  especially  bound  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  sanc 
tuary,  they  were  far  more  applicable  to  Mrs.  Stowe  her 
self.  Her  family  was  essentially  Levitical,  and  the 
quintessence  of  theological  excitement  was  distilled  about 
her  dreaming  childhood.  Her  father,  Lyman  Beecher, 
was  a  giant  of  the  faith.  He  was  a  robust,  active,  natu 
rally  healthy  spirit,  a  dynamic  creature,  who  used  to 
shovel  sand  from  one  corner  of  the  cellar  to  another  to 
tone  his  bodily  muscles,  and  toned  the  muscles  of  his 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  in 

spirit  by  shoveling  sinners  to  heaven  or  to  hell.  He  was 
born  too  normal  to  suffer,  himself,  the  extreme  agonies 
of  a  tormented  conscience,  though  his  curious  "  Autobi 
ography  "  shows  that  even  the  normal  had  their  struggles 
to  go  through. 

When  it  came  to  a  sensitive  nervous  organization  like 
his  daughter's,  the  spiritual  tumult  that  he  spread  around 
him  had  a  far  different  effect.  No  doubt  she  was  only 
one  of  many;  but  we  have  the  advantage  of  a  keener 
insight  into  her  sufferings  than  into  those  of  others.  No 
doubt  there  was  a  certain  strange  pleasure  in  the  suffer 
ings  themselves,  an  intense,  thrilling  appreciation  of 
being  at  any  rate  alive,  such  as  is  quaintly  indicated  in 
the  brief  sentence  of  Anatole  France,  "It  is  sweet  to 
believe,  even  in  hell."  Yet,  as  we  read  the  story  of  Mrs. 
Stowe's  experiences  from  our  modern  point  of  view,  we 
rebel  a  little,  with  the  feeling  that  there  is  enough  una 
voidable  misery  in  the  world  without  adding  the  dis 
tresses  of  the  imagination. 

What  these  distresses  were  in  Mrs.  Stowe's  case  we 
gather  from  many  passages  in  her  letters.  That  her 
sensitiveness,  her  response  to  influences  of  joy  and  de 
pression,  to  every  suggestion  from  others,  was  extreme, 
is  everywhere  evident.  "  I  believe  that  there  never  was 
a  person  more  dependent  on  the  good  and  evil  opinions 


ii2    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

of  those  around  than  I  am." 19  That  she  took  all  her 
spiritual  experiences  with  passion,  is  evident  also. 
"Thought,  intense  emotional  thought,  has  been  my 
disease/'20 

The  weight  of  original  sin  upon  such  a  temperament, 
the  horror  of  it,  with  all  its  fearful  consequences,  may 
easily  be  imagined.  An  ideal  of  perfection  was  before 
her  always,  and  it  seemed  as  if  she  never  attained  it,  — 
and  of  course  she  never  did.  She  could  do  nothing  right. 
Temptations  daily  beset  her  and  she  daily  yielded.  Back 
of  all  her  sins  was  pride,  fierce,  devilishly  prompting 
pride,  the  old,  stubborn,  willful,  unconquerable  self. 
She  went  hourly  into  battle  with  it.  Sometimes  she 
triumphed  for  a  moment;  but  it  rose  again,  in  hydra 
variety,  forever. 

All  this  was  forced  in  upon  her  soul,  beaten  in  upon 
it.  You  are  irretrievably  wicked,  said  her  best  friends ; 
there  is  no  escape  but  one:  believe — you  must  believe. 
So  she  believed,  or  said  she  did,  and  tried  to — tried  by 
day  and  by  night  to  find  her  way  through  the  complex 
maze  of  doctrine  which  believing  meant  in  those  clays. 
At  moments  she  felt  that  she  had  succeeded.  Rest  came, 
a  wide  peace  settled  down  upon  her ;  it  seemed  that  she 
could  never  again  be  troubled  any  more.  "My  whole 
soul  was  illumined  with  joy,  and  as  I  left  the  church 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  113 

to  walk  home,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  Nature  herself  were 
hushing  her  breath  to  hear  the  music  of  heaven."21 
She  said  to  her  father,  in  ecstasy,  "  Father,  I  have  given 
myself  to  Jesus,  and  He  has  taken  me."  And  her  father 
answered,  as  much  rejoiced  as  she,  "Then  has  a  new 
flower  blossomed  in  the  kingdom  this  day." 

But  the  ecstasies  did  not  endure.  Do  they  ever,  did 
they  ever,  even  in  the  calmest  and  most  saintly  heart? 
Doubts  come,  difficulties,  sometimes  a  flush  of  rebellion. 
She  hears  preachers  say  that  we  have  no  plea  to  offer  for 
our  sins  and  no  excuse.  Have  we  not  ?  she  says.  Why 
were  we  put  into  the  world  with  the  fierce  thirst  for 
sin  and  so  helpless  to  resist  it?  "I  have  never  known 
the  time  when  I  have  not  had  a  temptation  within  me 
so  strong  that  it  was  certain  I  should  not  overcome  it."  22 

Worse  than  the  doubts  is  the  dead  feeling  of  exhaus 
tion  and  emptiness  that  follows  enthusiasm.  You  are  in 
heaven  for  an  hour.  An  hour  afterwards  you  do  not 
care  whether  you  are  in  heaven  or  in  hell.  The  terrible 
struggle  of  these  experiences  has  dried  her  mind  and 
withered  her  soul.  "Though  young,  I  have  no  sym 
pathy  with  the  feelings  of  youth."23  So  her  spirit 
flutters  in  an  endless  turmoil,  exalted  and  depressed  all 
the  more  because  of  the  quiet  and  tranquillity  of  her  life 
without. 


ii4    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  she  fought  through  the 
storm,  that  with  the  passage  of  years  she  retained  the 
essence  of  her  faith,  at  the  same  time  dropping  or  ob 
scuring  the  struggles  and  terrors  of  it.  The  world  was 
broadening  about  her  and  she  broadened  fully  with  it. 
Love  came  to  be  the  great  stronghold  of  her  religion, 
love  and  hope  and  sunshine.  She  grew  more  and  more 
willing  to  leave  the  mysteries  and  the  problems  to  take 
care  of  themselves. 

Ill 

BUT  whatever  religion  she  had,  it  was  a  primary  in 
stinct  to  preach  it.  She  was  not  essentially  a  mystic, 
content  to  enjoy  her  spiritual  ecstasies  in  solitude,  to 
brood  over  them  without  any  effort  to  extend  them  to 
others.  She  was  born  to  be  active,  to  be  energetic,  to 
make  the  world  feel  her  existence.  When  she  was  a 
little  child,  she  heard  somebody  read  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  it  made  her  "  long  to  do  something,  I 
knew  not  what:  to  fight  for  my  country,  or  to  make 
some  declaration  on  my  own  account/' 24  She  was  like 
the  young  college  graduate  just  engaged,  who  was 
found  in  tears  and  explained  that  she  "wanted  to  do 
something  for  the  world  and  for  Wellesley  and  for 
him." 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  115 

In  the  New  England  of  those  days  the  desire  to  do 
something  generally  meant  to  communicate  one's  reli 
gious  experiences.  This  of  course  involved  making 
others  extremely  wretched;  but  as  it  was  to  save  their 
souls,  what  did  it  matter  ?  Had  not  one  been  extremely 
wretched  one's  self?  So  many  of  these  quiet,  earnest, 
simple  women  had  fought  through  a  passionate  spiritual 
struggle  to  a  hardly  earned  and  hardly  sustained  vic 
tory!  The  great  impulse  of  their  lives  was  to  fight 
the  battle  and  win  the  victory  for  those  they  loved, 
for  an  even  wider  world,  for  every  one.  Each  new 
battle  in  a  new  soul  made  their  own  triumphs  more 
confirmed  and  sure.  If  this  was  the  case  with  women 
in  general,  how  much  more  so  was  it  with  one  who  had 
grown  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  preaching  and  teaching; 
whose  father  had  spent  his  life  wrestling  with  the  devil 
in  the  pulpit  and  in  the  study  and  had  worsted  him  glori 
ously;  whose  brothers  had  followed  the  same  career 
with  like  energy  and  success !  She  speaks  of  one  of  these 
brothers  as  "peppering  the  land  with  moral  influence."25 
Was  it  not  certain  that,  with  her  temperament  and  her 
experiences,  she  would  want,  in  some  shape  or  other,  to 
hold  the  pepper-pot  herself? 

She  8id.  It  must  not  be  understood  from  this  that  in 
daily  life  she  was  pedantic,  or  inclined  to  moralize  and 


ii6    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

sermonize.  On  the  contrary,  she  was  gay  and  sym 
pathetic.  She  had  a  wide  appreciation  of  human  nature, 
a  wide  comprehension  of  it ;  and  this  led  her  to  bear  with 
others  whose  point  of  view  was  entirely  different  from 
hers.  "  Tolerance/'  she  says  in  one  of  her  books,  "  tol 
erance  for  individual  character  is  about  the  last  Chris 
tian  grace  that  comes  to  flower  in  family  or  church." 26 
It  had  come  to  flower  with  her.  Men  and  women 
might  differ  vastly  in  beliefs,  in  standards,  even  in 
practice,  and  yet  be  all  lovable.  "My  dear  friend," 
she  says,  "we  must  consider  other  people's  natures/'27 
Is  it  possible  to  give  more  broadly  human  as  well  as  more 
broadly  Christian  advice  than  that? 

But  all  the  tolerance  and  comprehension  did  not  mean 
indifference  or  mere  idle  study  of  men's  various  ways  of 
going  to  ruin.  With  the  sympathy  came  a  passionate 
desire  to  help,  a  profound  conviction  that  sympathy 
was  the  best  agent  for  helping.  And  as  she  had  a  con 
stant  eagerness  to  make  over  souls,  so  she  had  a 
whirlwind  energy  in  the  manner  of  doing  it.  She 
tells  us  of  her  father's  wonderful  faculty  of  exciting 
family  enthusiasm.  When  he  had  an  object  to  accom 
plish,  he  would  work  the  whole  household  up  to  a  pitch 
of  fervent  zeal,  in  which  the  strength  of  each  one  seemed 
quadruple3.  She  amply  inherited  the  trait,  and  strove 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  117 

with  all  her  nervous  force  to  "do  good,  wherever  she 
might  be.  Even  the  simple  pursuit  of  her  own  pleasure 
she  was  fain  to  justify  by  some  side-issue  of  benevo 
lence.  Thus,  when  she  bought  a  plantation  in  Florida, 
she  urged  that  she  was  largely  influenced  by  the  wish  to 
elevate  the  people.  The  plan,  she  says,  "  is  not  in  any 
sense  a  mere  worldly  enterprise." 28 

Very  characteristic  is  the  anecdote  told  by  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps  of  the  friend  in  Germany  whom  Mrs. 
Stowe  was  anxious  to  convert  from  his  sceptical  phi 
losophy.  First,  she  argued,  pleaded,  persuaded  by  letter, 
some  of  her  letters  being  even  thirty  pages  long.  When 
this  epistolary  effort  failed  her,  she  was  obliged  to  rely 
wholly  upon  prayer;  and  at  length,  at  Christmas-time, 
her  perseverance  was  rewarded  by  the  complete  conver 
sion  of  the  reluctant  German. 29 

But  with  Mrs.  Stowe  the  natural  expression  for  this 
preaching,  reforming  impulse  was  literature,  just  as 
with  Mary  Lyon  it  was  teaching.  Gautier  said  that  the 
production  of  copy  was  a  natural  function  with  George 
Sand.  Without  emphasizing  it  quite  so  strongly,  it  may 
yet  be  said  that  the  pen  was  the  implement  that  Mrs. 
Stowe  handled  most  readily  an'd  with  most  pleasure. 
She  did  not  write  because  she  read.  She  wrote  because 
she  thought  and  felt,  and  writing  was  to  her  the  sim- 


ii8    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

plest  medium  for  getting  rid  of  thought  and  feeling. 
Like  many  others  with  a  similar  gift,  she  was  not  frank 
or  particularly  outspoken  in  daily  converse.  It  costs 
her  an  effort  to  express  feeling  of  any  kind,  she  says. 
Yet  when  she  took  her  pen,  all  her  inner  life  flowed  out 
readily.  Could  she  have  said  to  any  one  what  she  wrote 
of  Niagara,  for  instance?  "I  felt  as  if  I  could  have 
gone  over  with  the  waters;  it  would  be  so  beautiful  a 
death;  there  would  be  no  fear  in  it.  I  felt  the  rock 
tremble  under  me  with  a  sort  of  joy.  I  was  so  maddened 
that  I  could  have  gone  too,  if  it  had  gone."30 

All  her  life  writing  excited  her,  overpowered  her. 
She  does  not  do  it  methodically,  systematically,  but  with 
a  frenzy  of  self-forgetfulness.  "My  own  book,  instead 
of  cooling,  boils  and  bubbles  daily  and  nightly."81  The 
work  overcomes  her  in  the  production ;  it  overcomes  her 
afterwards,  as  if  it  were  the  production  of  some  one  else. 
When  she  reads  of  the  death  of  Uncle  Tom,  she  can 
"  scarcely  restrain  the  convulsion  of  tears  and  sobbings  " 
that  shakes  her  frame. 32 

With  such  a  mighty  instrument  of  preaching  at  hand 
as  this,  how  can  she  fail  to  exercise  it?  It  is  a  most 
interesting  study  to  disentangle  the  web  of  motives  that 
lies  behind  her  literary  achievement.  Money?  Money 
enters  in,  of  course.  Mrs.  Stowe  liked  to  earn.  She  also 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  iig 

liked  to  spend  and  liked  to  give.  Now  earning  was  irregu 
lar,  spending  was  lamentably  regular.  She  so  managed 
that  she  was  never  seriously  hampered  financially;  she 
was  too  prudent  and  too  honorable  for  that.  But  the 
pressure  of  money  needs  was  not  strictly  favorable  to 
the  pursuit  of  literature.  Her  biographers  tell  us  that 
at  times  what  she  pursued  was  not  literature,  but  the 
necessities  of  life;  and  she  herself  says  that  when  she 
began  "  Uncle  Tom/'  she  was  "  driven  to  write  by  the 
necessity  of  making  some  income  for  family  expenses." 8* 
Yet  the  passion  for  writing,  for  doing  something  that 
would  make  the  world  remember  her,  went  far  deeper 
than  any  need  of  money.  Her  sister,  in  a  sharp,  brief 
characterization  of  all  the  family,  says  that,  as  a  child, 
"  Harriet  is  just  as  odd,  and  loves  to  be  laughed  at  as 
much  as  ever."34  To  be  laughed  at,  to  be  pointed  at, 
to  be  praised — there  is  the  writer  surely.  Mrs.  Stowe 
tells  us  that,  when  she  first  began  to  read,  she  was  pos 
sessed  with  the  longing  to  do  something  in  literature. 
When  she  was  thirteen,  she  wrote  a  tragedy.  "  It  fille3' 
my  thoughts  sleeping  and  waking,"35  till  her  sister 
forced  her  to  write  extracts  from  Butler's  "Analogy," 
instead.  All  through  the  production  of  her  lengthy 
series  of  works  it  is  evident  that  she  was  impelled  by 
something  besides  the  need  of  money:  that  the  intense 


120    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

ambition  to  succeed,  to  get  glory,  to  touch  and  move  and 
thrill  the  hearts  of  men,  was  ever  present  with  her. 

At  the  same  time,  she  would  not  have  admitted  that 
this  was  her  main  motive,  any  more  than  money.  Her 
gifts,  if  she  had  any,  were  given  her  for  a  purpose,  and 
that  was  never  forgotten.  "He  has  given  me  talents 
and  I  will  lay  them  at  his  feet,  well  satisfied  if  He  will 
accept  them."36  She  writes  with  her  life-blood,  she 
says,  and  "  as  called  of  God."  In  "  Uncle  Tom  "  she  was 
openly  and  confessedly  doing  missionary  work.  But  in 
everything  she  ever  wrote,  her  desire  was  the  same.  She 
was  a  Beecher.  The  Beechers  were  Levites,  preachers, 
all  of  them,  —  only  it  fell  to  her  to  hold  forth  from  a 
vaster  pulpit  than  any  other  Beecher  ever  dreamed  of. 
And  just  as  with  them,  so  her  utterances  were  given  to 
her  from  a  higher  source.  She  did  not  write  "Uncle 
Tom,"  she  declares.  She  saw  it,  she  felt  it,  she  heard  it 
in  prophetic  visions.  It  came  to  her  in  a  great  tide  of 
inspiration,  the  spirit  pouring  through  her  as  its  mere 
humble  instrument  for  the  renovation  and  regeneration 
of  the  world. 

And  as  the  preaching,  missionary  instinct  was  always 
present  in  her  literary  ambition,  so  it  was  equally  present 
in  her  enjoyment  of  popularity  and  success.  It  is  un 
necessary  to  say  that  these  came  to  her  in  vast  measure, 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  121 

and  she  appreciated  them.  When  she  was  eleven  years 
old,  her  father  asked  her  teacher  who  wrote  a  certain 
composition.  "Your  daughter,  sir."37  "It  was  the 
proudest  moment  of  my  life,"  she  says.  But  she  had 
many  proud  moments  afterwards.  The  storm  of  ap 
plause —  and  of  equally  intoxicating  obloquy  —  which 
came  to  her  from  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  has  not  often 
been  surpassed  in  the  history  of  literature.  She  was 
praised  and  admired  and  reviled  in  America.  In  Eng 
land  the  reviling  was  less,  the  praise  and  admiration 
perhaps  even  greater.  When  she  visited  that  country, 
high  and  low  crowded  to  gaze  upon  her,  to  touch  her 
hand,  to  hear  her  speak. 

Nor  was  it  all  vague  and  impersonal  glory  which 
flowed  about  her  in  the  streets  but  left  her  alone  on  an 
isolated  pinnacle.  What  she  asked  of  the  world  most 
was  love.  In  the  full  sweep  of  her  success  she  wrote, 
"It  is  not  fame  nor  praise  that  contents  me.  I  seem  never 
to  have  needed  love  so  much  as  now."  38  Well,  love  came 
to  her.  She  made  friends  everywhere,  friends  with 
wealth,  friends  with  distinction,  friends  with  titles,  who 
took  her  into  their  hearts  just  as  nearly  as  those  who  had 
grown  up  with  her  at  home.  The  warm  lining  of  her 
fame  was  as  rich  and  lasting  as  its  glittering  outside. 

Through  it  all  she  was  modest,  put  on  no  airs  or  vain 


122    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

pretenses,  did  not  seem  to  feel  that  she  had  done  any 
thing  great,  insisted,  with  apparent  sincerity,  that  the 
work  was  not  her  work,  nor  hers  the  glory.  She  moved 
among  those  curious  and  applauding  crowds,  a  little, 
quiet,  shrinking  yet  always  dignified  figure,  with  a  half 
smile  of  wonder  what  they  were  all  making  such  a  fuss 
about.  "  It  was  enough  to  frighten  a  body  into  fits,"  says 
her  husband  of  one  great  occasion.  "  But  we  took  it  as 
quietly  as  we  could,  and  your  mamma  looked  as  meek 
as  Moses  in  her  little,  battered  straw  hat  and  gray  cloak, 
seeming  to  say,  '  I  did  n't  come  here  o'  purpose/  " 39 

She  enjoyed  it;  oh,  there  is  no  doubt  about  that.  She 
was  eminently  human,  and  few  human  beings  have  lived 
who  would  not  have  enjoyed  it.  But  through  all  the 
tumult  and  hurly-burly  there  persisted  that  still,  small 
voice  telling  her  that  the  triumph  and  the  means  that 
won  it  were  given  her  for  a  purpose.  The  instinct  of 
the  missionary  and  preacher  at  once  excused  her  joy  in 
her  success  and  doubled  it.  Not  hers  was  it  to  write 
brilliant  and  cleverly  turned  stories  for  the  fleeting  en 
chantment  of  an  hour,  but  to  stir  hearts,  to  win  hearts, 
to  push  on  the  movement  of  great  causes  in  a  turbid 
world. 

Lowell,  writing  as  editor  of  the  "  Atlantic,"  of  which 
she  was  a  pillar  in  those  days,  cautioned  her  to  "Let 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  123 

your  moral  take  care  of  itself,  and  remember  that  an 
author's  writing-desk  is  something  infinitely  higher 
than  a  pulpit/' 40 

To  her  there  was  nothing  higher  than  a  pulpit,  nothing 
could  be.  "  The  power  of  fictitious  writing,  for  good  as 
well  as  evil,  is  a  thing  which  ought  most  seriously  to  be 
reflected  on,"41  she  says.  She  never  ceased  to  reflect 
on  it. 

IV 

SHE  reflected  on  it  more  than  she  did  on  her  story, 
her  incidents,  or  her  characters.  In  fact,  fortunately, 
these  hurried  her  on  without  reflection.  But  plenty 
of  the  reflection  on  the  power  of  fictitious  writing 
for  good  and  evil  always  got  mixed  up  with  them. 
By  temperament  she  was  an  interested  and  an  acute 
and  exact  observer  of  human  nature,  both  external  and 
internal.  Her  stories,  all  her  stories  in  greater  or  less 
degree,  are  founded  on  an  extensive  study  of  character 
and  manners.  This  is  true  of  her  Southern  novels, 
and  they  show  that  she  had  made  good  use  of  her  oppor 
tunities  in  collecting  material,  both  consciously  and  un 
consciously.  It  is  far  more  true  of  her  New  England 
books ;  and  the  fine  and  varied  insight  of  "  The  Minis 
ter's  Wooing,"  "The  Pearl  of  Orr's  Island,"  especially 


124    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

of  "  Oldtown  Folks,"  has  hardly  been  surpassed  since. 
In  this  line  it  must  be  remembered  that  Mrs.  Stowe  was 
an  originator,  for  Hawthorne's  work  was  entirely  differ 
ent  in  spirit.  If  Miss  Jewett,  Mrs.  Freeman,  and  Miss 
Alice  Brown  have  developed  some  sides  more  effec 
tively,  Mrs.  Stowe  deserves  credit  for  having  set  the 
great  example.  The  shrewdness,  the  sympathy,  with 
which  she  depicted  the  New  England  farmer,  and,  above 
all,  his  wife  and  daughter,  are  forever  commendable 
and  delightful.  That  peculiar  thing  called  the  New 
England  conscience  is  especially  fascinating  to  Mrs. 
Stowe,  and  she  is  never  weary  of  disentangling  its  curi 
ous  webs  of  subtle  torment. 

In  making  all  these  investigations  she  sometimes  likes 
to  think  of  herself  as  the  artist  merely,  who  portrays 
man's  body  and  soul  with  scientific  ardor  and  is  more 
concerned  with  truth  than  with  moral  efficacy.  "  I  am 
myself  but  the  observer  and  reporter,"  she  writes,  "  see 
ing  much,  doubting  much,  questioning  much,  and  be 
lieving  with  all  my  heart  only  in  a  very  few  things."42 
She  does  herself  infinite  injustice.  By  comparison  witK 
some  of  us,  she  believed  in  a  great  many  things.  Espe 
cially,  she  was  filled  with  an  overwhelming  zeal  to  con 
vey  to  others  what  beliefs  she  had.  It  is  here  that  she 
differs  from  the  notable  writers  who  have  succeeded 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  125 

her.  They,  for  the  most  part,  observe  and  report  life 
as  it  is,  from  scientific  and  artistic  curiosity.  But  to 
Mrs.  Stowe  every  heart  is  a  text  and  every  tragedy  a 
fearful  example.  She  probably  was  not  aware  herself 
how  furiously  she  preached.  But  no  Beecher  was  ever 
a  mere  observer,  or  could  have  been  contented  to  leave 
New  England  and  the  world  without  making  them 
better. 

And  as  her  observation  and  material  were  affected  by 
her  missionary  spirit,  so  her  artistic  methods  were 
affected  even  more.  Everywhere  the  illustration  of 
human  truth  is  a  secondary  object;  the  first  is  to  produce 
an  effect  —  naturally,  a  moral  effect.  Now,  in  literature 
the  subordination  of  truth  to  effect,  no  matter  for  what 
purpose,  is  melodrama.  Dumas  and  the  thousands  like 
him  arrange  effective  incident  merely  to  amuse,  to 
startle  and  excite  the  reader;  Mrs.  Stowe  arranges  it 
to  jolt  the  reader  into  the  path  of  virtue.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  violent  sensation.  Where  are  there  more 
violent  sensations  than  are  to  be  found  in  Shakespeare? 
But,  as  Trollope  admirably  remarks,  there  is  no  objec 
tion  to  sensation,  no  matter  how  violent,  provided  it  is 
always  subordinated  to  the  3evelopment  of  character. 
When  character  is  subordinated  to  sensation,  the  proper 
name  is  surely  melodrama.  It  is  amusing  and  profitable 


126    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

to  hear  Mrs.  Stowe  herself  on  this  subject.  Some  one  has 
accused  her  of  being  moved  by  melodrama.  She  is  at 
first  appalled,  though  she  has  no  very  clear  idea  what 
is  meant.  Then  she  concludes  consolingly,  "If,  by 
being  melodramatic,  as  the  terrible  word  is,  he  [the 
painter]  can  shadow  forth  a  grand  and  comforting  reli 
gious  idea  .  .  .  who  shall  say  that  he  may  not  do  so 
because  he  violates  the  lines  of  some  old  Greek  artist?  "48 
You  see  the  point. 

An  entertaining  side-issue  of  this  preaching  aspect  of 
the  creator  of  Uncle  Tom  is  her  active  part  in  the  Byron 
controversy.  I  have  no  wish  to  stir  up  a  vexed  and  dis 
agreeable  question;  but  I  do  insist  that  Mrs.  Stowe's 
part  in  it  was  based  upon  the  zealous  desire  to  do  good, 
however  much  lack  of  tact  she  may  have  shown.  When 
she  was  a  child,  she  adored  Byron,  and  was  deeply  over 
come  by  the  announcement  of  his  death.  She  heard  it 
from  her  father,  who  also  adored  him,  —  with  reserva 
tions, —  and  thought  that,  if  Byron  "could  only  have 
talked  with  Taylor  and  me,  it  might  have  got  him  out  of 
his  troubles." 44  Is  n't  that  delicious  ?  Later,  she  became 
intimate  with  Lady  Byron,  and,  after  her  death,  felt  that 
an  effort  to  make  clear  her  relations  with  her  husband 
was  a  necessary  act  of  justice  to  the  memory  of  a  long 
maligned  woman.  And  what  a  magnificent  theme  it  was 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  127 

for  moral  edification!  Still,  you  see,  the  preacher 
Beecher.  For  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  hung 
always  about  Mrs.  Stowe  that  light,  vast  aura  of  sancti- 
fication  which  is,  or  was,  so  apt  to  emanate  from  the 
New  England  ministerial  being,  and  which  is  condensed 
into  a  supernatural  glow  upon  the  countenance,  even 
pictured,  of  her  distinguished  brother,  Henry  Ward. 

I  do  not  mean,  however,  to  stress  this  missionary 
side  of  Mrs.  Stowe  with  undue  emphasis.  As  I  have 
before  pointed  out,  she  was  a  sunny,  human  person, 
with  large  understanding  of  the  weaknesses  of  others 
and  large  allowance  for  them.  She  had  an  excellent 
portion  of  humor  in  her  composition,  and  indeed  this 
was  as  characteristic  of  her  family  as  was  preaching. 
She  says  of  her  oldest  sister  that  her  "  life  seemed  to  be 
a  constant  stream  of  mirthfulness ;" 45  and  Harriet  her 
self  often  drifted  into  broad  eddies  of  the  same  golden 
river.  From  her  father  she  inherited  the  faculty  of 
amusing  people  as  well  as  that  of  admonishing  them. 
From  him  also  she  got  a  sense  of  the  pleasant  things  of 
this  world,  and  a  sort  of  eternal  youth  for  enjoying 
them.  "  Hearts  never  grow  old,  do  they  ?  "  cried  the 
Reverend  Lyman;  and  his  daughter  could  have  said 
the  same. 

One  even  divines  in  Mrs.  Stowe  pagan  possibilities 


128    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

that  are  really  delightful.  She  reproaches  George  Eliot 
with  too  much  self-abnegation,  and  wishes  that  she  could 
get  her  into  the  Beecher  household,  where  "we  some 
times  make  the  rafters  ring  with  fun,  and  say  anything 
and  everything,  no  matter  what."46  She  has  occa 
sionally  an  obscure  feeling  that  something  is  wrong  in 
the  preaching  attitude;  that  there  are  interests  in  life 
besides  being  good  and  the  effect  to  make  others  so. 
"  With  all  New  England's  earnestness  and  practical  effi 
ciency/'  she  writes,  "there  is  a  long  withering  of  the 
soul's  more  ethereal  part,  —  a  crushing  out  of  the 
beautiful,  —  which  is  horrible.  Children  are  born  there 
with  a  sense  of  beauty  equally  delicate  with  any  in  the 
world,  in  whom  it  dies  a  lingering  death  of  smothered 
desire  and  pining,  weary  starvation.  I  know,  because  I 
have  felt  it."47 

What  charms  me  most  in  this  connection  is  Mrs. 
Stowe's  conversion  to  Rubens.  In  all  the  wide  spiritual 
world  can  you  imagine  temperaments  more  different? 
She  knew  it  as  well  as  you  do.  She  begins  by  hating 
him.  Yet  even  then  she  feels  the  power.  "Rubens, 
whose  pictures  I  detested  with  all  the  energy  of  my  soul, 
I  knew  and  felt  all  the  time,  by  the  very  pain  he  gave  me, 
to  be  a  real  living  artist."48  Afterwards,  when  she  sees 
the  gorgeous  Medici  group  in  Paris,  she  is  almost,  if 


HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  129 

not  quite,  converted.  That  starved  childish  spirit  which 
hungered  for  earthly  loveliness  in  the  barren  New  Eng 
land  desert  found  something  to  thrill  it  in  the  Rubens 
flesh,  so  splendidly  redolent  of  the  glory  of  this  world. 
In  fact,  if  she  had  been  a  pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  out 
worn,  she  would  have  followed  it  with  the  same  proselyt 
ing  ardor  that  she  gave  to  Christianity;  and  the  image 
of  Mrs.  Stowe,  a  thyrsus  in  her  hand,  undraped  in  a 
dainty,  if  limited,  garment  of  fawnskin,  careering  over 
the  pastures  by  the  sea,  at  the  head  of  a  Bacchic  squad 
ron  of  middle-aged  New  England  matrons,  does  not  lack 
a  certain  piquant,  if  indecorous,  exhilaration. 

But  she  was  to  descend  to  posterity,  not  as  a  votaress 
of  Bacchus,  but  as  an  ardent  expositor  of  the  New  Eng 
land  conscience.  All  her  books  are  saturated  with  it.  In 
every  one  of  them  nature  and  human  nature,  passion  and 
hope,  good  and  ill,  are  used  to  illustrate  the  goodness  of 
God,  the  importance  of  virtue,  the  absolute  necessity  of 
making  over  the  world  on  the  New  England  model. 
Perhaps  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  is  no  better  than  some 
of  the  others ;  but  it  has  the  characteristics  of  all  of  them, 
and  a  fortunate  conjunction  of  circumstances  gave  it  an 
enormous  success  which  none  of  the  others  could  have 
achieved.  Read  everywhere  in  America  and  Europe, 
translated  into  all  languages,  a  mighty  instrument  in 


130    PORTRAITS  OE  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

the  extinction  of  slavery,  it  was  far  more  than  a 
novel,  it  was  one  of  the  greatest  moral  agencies  the 
world  has  seen;  and  Mrs.  Stowe  will  be  simply  the  author 
of  it  to  millions  who  know,  and  care  to  know,  nothing 
else  about  her.  Few  teachers  or  preachers  anywhere  can 
ever  hope  to  accomplish  such  results  as  she  did. 

Undeniably,  with  Mrs.  Stowe,  as  with  others  of  her 
type,  there  are  times  when  one  wearies  intensely  of  this 
missionary  endeavor.  After  all,  the  sky  is  blue,  the 
winds  blow,  and  life  is  pleasant.  Why  not  let  it  go  at 
that?  Yet,  when  the  hours  and  days  of  anguish  come, 
—  for  the  individual  or  for  the  world,  —  as  they  are 
coming  now,  we  realize  that  perhaps  we  need  these  little, 
fragile,  insinuating,  indomitable  things  with  curls  to 
drive  or  wheedle  us  into  the  fold  of  God. 


V 

JktARGAREX  FULLER  OSSOLI 


CHRONOLOGY 

Sarah  Margaret  Fuller 

Born  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  May  23,  1810. 

Grew  up  in  Cambridge  and  Groton. 

Taught  and  talked  in  Boston  and  elsewhere,  1837-1844. 

Edited  the  "  Dial,"  1840-1842. 

Literary  Life  in  New  York,  1844-1846. 

In  Europe,  1846-1850. 

Married  the  Marquis  Ossoli,  December,  1847. 

Drowned  off  Fire  Island,  July  19,  1850. 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI 


y 

MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI 

I 

SARAH  MARGARET  FULLER  brought  the  thrill  of  life 
wherever  she  went,  though  she  was  often  only  half  alive 
herself.  As  a  child,  from  1820  to  1830,  she  stirred  her 
Cambridge  playmates.  As  a  teacher  and  talker  she 
stirred  the  transcendental  circles  of  Boston.  As  a  writer 
in  New  York  she  moved  men  and  women  with  her  soul 
more  than  with  her  pen.  She  went  to  Italy  in  the  forties 
and  the  Italians  loved  her,  and  one  of  them  made  her 
a  marchioness  and  a  mother.  Then  the  stormy  sea 
engulfed  her,  as  it  did  Shelley. 

Mrs.  Cheney,  writing  in  1902,  fifty  years  after  Mar 
garet's  death,  says :  "  She  is  the  woman  of  America  who 
is  moulding  the  lives  and  the  characters  of  her  country 
women  more  than  any  other.  It  is  for  her  that  in  the 
new  West,  which  she  was  among  the  first  to  understand, 
the  women's  clubs  are  named,  and  both  in  the  East  and 
West  audiences  gladly  listen  to  all  that  can  be  told  of 
her."1  I  wonder  if  this  is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  then. 

The  best  way  to  understand  Margaret  will  be  to  ana- 


i34    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

lyze  her  in  three  distinct  phases,  to  unfold,  as  if  were, 
one  wrapping  after  another,  until  we  reach  the  essential 
secret  of  her  heart.  And  first  we  should  see  her  in  that 
social  contact  with  others  which,  at  any  rate  in  the 
earlier  part  of  her  life,  was  her  ambition  and  her  despair. 
No  one  has  striven  harder  than  she  to  accomplish  in  hu 
man  relations  what  those  who  strive  hardest  recognize 
most  clearly  in  the  end  to  be  impossible. 

As  a  woman,  if  we  are  to  consider  her  socially,  we 
must  begin  by  thinking  of  her  appearance.  She  had  a 
passionate  longing  to  be  beautiful ;  but  apparently  no  one 
thought  her  so.  She  was  rather  short,  rather  heavy, 
had  a  lofty  but  not  attractive  carriage,  opened  and  shut 
her  eyes  oddly,  poised  her  head  oddly.  Emerson  says 
that  she  "made  a  disagreeable  first  impression  on  most 
persons  ...  to  such  an  extreme  that  they  did  not  wish 
to  be  in  the  same  room  with  her."  2  She  grew  aware  of 
this  with  time,  though  perhaps  she  did  not  wholly  un 
derstand  the  causes.  I  "  made  up  my  mind,"  she  says,, 
"  to  be  bright  and  ugly." 3 

She  was  bright  enough,  but  there  was  too  much  mak 
ing  up  the  mind  about  it,  and  it  did  not  please  strangers, 
—  nor  even,  in  the  early  days,  people  who  knew  her  well. 
•A  tradition  of  intense  dislike  still  surrounds  her  name 
for  many  who  can  never  get  over  it.  Horace  Mann, 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     135 

suggesting  a  popular  impression  about  her  family,  said 
that  "she  had  the  disagreeableness  of  forty  Fullers,"4 
and  certainly  at  times  she  did  appear  to  concentrate  a 
large  dose  of  the  unattractive.  "To  the  multitude  she 
was  a  haughty  and  supercilious  person," 5  says  one  who 
admired  and  loved  her.  However  much  she  may  have 
prized  attention  and  applause,  she  would  not  stoop  for 
them.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  records  of  history 
show  a  woman  who  began  life  by  declaring,  to  herself 
and  others,  a  larger  and  more  sweeping  sense  of  her 
own  power  and  importance.  Her  mighty  and  four 
square  egotism  teased  the  shy  and  self-distrustful  Haw 
thorne  till  he  had  immortalized  it  in  the  Zenobia  of  the 
"  Blithedale  Romance."  It  disconcerted  the  grave  Emer 
son.  It  annoyed  Lowell,  —  "A  very  foolish,  conceited 
woman."6  It  amused  Horace  Greeley,  who  was  not 
without  his  own  fair  share  of  the  same  quality.  The 
pleasant  interplay  of  the  two  egotisms  together  is  de 
lightfully  illustrated  in  Margaret's  comment  on  Horace: 
"  His  abilities,  in  his  own  way,  are  great.  He  believes 
in  mine  to  a  surprising  extent.  We  are  true  friends."  7 
But  nothing  can  equal  Margaret's  own  words  about 
herself.  "There  are  also  in  every  age  a  few  in  whose 
lot  the  meaning  of  that  age  is  concentrated.  I  feel  that 
I  am  one  of  those  persons  in  my  age  and  sex.  I  feel 


136    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

chosen  among  women." 8  And  again,  "  I  now  know  all 
the  people  worth  knowing  in  America,  and  I  find  no  in 
tellect  comparable  to  my  own."9  She  was  fully  de 
veloped  and  mature  when  she  said  this,  and  I  do  not 
know  where  you  can  surpass  it.  With  all  her  brilliancy 
and  all  her  wit,  perhaps  she  lacked  the  sense  of  humor 
that  might  have  saved  her  from  the  worst  excesses  of 
egotism. 

To  be  sure,  more  think  these  things  than  say  them, 
and  we  must  accredit  Margaret  with  a  royal  candor 
which  is  not  without  charm.  She  said  what  she  thought 
about  herself,  and  she  said  what  she  thought  about  others 
right  to  their  faces.  Those  who  were  large  enough 
came  to  appreciate  the  spirit  in  which  she  did  it.  But 
many  were  not  large  enough,  and  her  best  friends  admit 
that  she  combined  candor  with  a  singular  and  unfortu 
nate  tactlessness. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  Margaret 
nursed,  or  wished  to  nurse,  her  self-esteem  in  private. 
I  have  said  that  she  sought  society.  She  did,  and  with 
the  wish  to  dominate  and  control  it,  to  be  the  leader, 
if  anything  at  all.  In  this  respect,  as  in  some  others, 
she  recalls  Lady  Holland,  who  for  so  many  years  main 
tained  a  salon  by  sheer  force  of  will.  Margaret  "had 
an  immense  appetite  for  social  intercourse/'10  says  one 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     137 

who  knew  her  intimately,  and  she  threw  herself  into 
this,  as  into  everything,  with  the  furious  ardor  which 
she  herself  understood  so  well.  "  There  is  no  modesty 
or  moderation  in  me."11  Wherever  she  came,  she 
wished  to  lead,  and  to  dominate  whomsoever  she  met. 
Yield  to  her,  and  she  would  love  you  —  if  she  thought 
you  worth  while.  Resist  her,  and  you  became  an  object 
of  interest,  whether  she  thought  you  worth  while  or 
not  Emerson  says :  "  When  a  person  was  overwhelmed 
by  her,  and  answered  not  a  word  except  'Margaret, 
be  merciful  to  me,  a  sinner/  then  her  love  and  tender 
ness  would  come  like  a  seraph's."12 

The  means  she  used  to  ensnare  and  captivate  were 
as  varied  as  they  were  startling.  She  would  adapt 
herself  to  every  one,  be  all  things  to  all  men  and  women, 
if  the  fancy  seized  her.  Persuasion  was  just  as  much 
at  her  command  as  force.  Her  powers  of  imitation  and 

mimicry  were  unlimited.     "  Had  she  condescended  to  j 

t 
appear  before  the  footlights,  she  would  soon  have  been 

recognized  as  the  first  actress  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen-  I 
tury,"13  says  Greeley.  We  have  often  heard  before  of 
ladies  who  would  have  been,  if  they  had  condescended. 
Nevertheless,  the  tribute  is  important  for  the  study  of 
Margaret.  Read,  also,  her  own  autobiographical  story, 
"Mariana,"  with  its  extraordinary  account  of  her  at- 


138    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

tempts  as  a  child1  at  boarding-school  to  control  and 
dominate  her  fellow  pupils,  the  arts  and  wiles  and  de 
ceptions  she  cunningly  practiced  only  to  overthrow  her 
influence  in  the  end  by  her  impatient  haughtiness  and 
eccentricity.  She  had,  she  says  of  herself,  "the  same 
power  of  excitement  that  is  described  in  the  spinning 
dervishes  of  the  East.  Like  them  she  would  spin  until 
all  around  her  were  giddy,  while  her  own  brain,  instead 
of  being  disturbed,  was  excited  to  great  action."14 
Read,  also,  Emerson's  description  of  the  means  she  used 
to  overcome  his  original  prejudice:  "She  studied  my 
tastes,  piqued  and  amused  me,  challenged  frankness  by; 
frankness,  and  did  not  conceal  the  good  opinion  of  me 
she  brought  with  her,  nor  her  wish  to  please.  She  was 
curious  to  know  my  opinions  and  experiences.  Of 
course,  it  was  impossible  long  to  hold  out  against  such 
urgent:  assault." 15 

So  others  found  it  besides  Emerson.  For  it  must  be 
recognized  that  this  singular  creature,  who  had  such 
a  power  of  making  enemies  and  arousing  distaste,  Had 
also  such  immense  mental  and  spiritual  resources  that 
her  talk  was  admired  and  her  society  sought  by  the 
wisest  and  the  wittiest  persons  who  came!  near  her.  To 
begin  with,  she  had  a  belief  in'  conversation,  its  delights 
and  possibilities,  which  seems  pathetic  to  those  who 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     139 

have  pursued  the  ideal  of  it  through  an  Odyssey  of 
failure.  She  loved  to  talk,  to  make  others  talk,  even 
to  try  to  make  others  talk.  It  must  be  confessed  that, 
by  universal  testimony,  she  had  an  extraordinary  power 
of  stimulation,  of  taking  what  seemed  to  be  dull  clods 
and  making  hearts  of  them.  Madame  Arconati  wrote 
Emerson  that  she  had  known  no  woman  with  a  mind 
'plus  vivifiant.1*  The  word  seems  final.  Her  soul 
touched  others  and  made  them  live. 

All  records  of  these  wonderful  talkers,  all  attempts 
to  transmit  them  to  posterity,  are  more  or  less  unsuc 
cessful.  But  Margaret  has  been  fortunate  in  her  in 
terpreters.  They  rarely  note  her  words,  but,  wisely,  the 
impression  she  made  upon  them.  And  it  is  easy  to 
gather  what  her  power  of  adaptation  was  in  different 
surroundings.  For  instance,  Horace  Greeley  found  her 
serious,  in  the  main.  "She  could  be  joyous  and  even 
merry;  but  her  usual  manner,  while  with  us,  was  one 
of  grave  thoughtfulness,  absorption  in  noble  deeds,  and 
in  paramount  aspirations."17  How  different  is  Emer 
son's  picture!  He  does  not,  indeed,  deny  the  gravity. 
She  could  and  would  talk  with  ravishing  earnestness,  and 
with  a  frankness,  as  from  man  to  man,  which  no  man 
could  excel.  But  what  sudden  and  surprising  changes 
'from  gravity  to  mirth,  what  echoing  gayety,  what  swift 


140    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

and  stinging  satire,  what  instant  gift  of  adjustment  to 
the  call  of  circumstance!  "She  sympathizes  so  fast 
with  all  forms  of  life,  that  she  talks  never  narrowly  or 
hostilely,  nor  betrays,  like  all  the  rest,  under  a  thin 
garb  of  new  words,  the  old  droning  cast-iron  opinions 
or  notions  of  many  years'  standing." 18  And  the  same 
excellent  judge  sums  up  her  talk  as  "the  most  enter 
taining  conversation  in  America." 19  Again,  he  says  of 
her  power  over  those  she  met:  "Of  personal  influence, 
speaking  strictly,  —  an  efflux,  that  is,  purely  of  mind 
and  character,  excluding  all  effects  of  power,  wealth, 
fashion,  beauty,  or  literary  fame  —  she  had  an  extraor 
dinary  degree;  I  think  more  than  any  person  I  have 
known." 20  That  this  could  be  said  of  one  who  had  the 
exceptional  elements  of  repulsion  noted  in  the  begin 
ning  of  this  portrait  shows  that  we  are  dealing  with  a 
soul  of  unusual  and  fascinating  interest. 

Nor  was  Margaret's  power  over  the  hearts  of  others 
merely  an  external,  temporary,  and  social  one.  She 
could  not  only  startle  and  stimulate;  where  she  chose, 
she  could  inspire  profound  and  lasting  attachment.  "  I 
at  least,"  says  Colonel  Higginson,  "  have  never  known 
any  woman  who  left  behind  an  affection  so  deep  and! 
strong.  It  is  now  thirty  years  since  her  death,  and 
there  is  scarcely  a  friend  of  hers  who  does  not  speak 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI  141 

of  her  with  as  warm  a  devotion  as  if  she  had  died  yes 
terday."21  During  a  part  of  her  life  Margaret  was  a 
teacher.  She  taught  in  various  schools  and  in  different 
places.  Under  her  teaching  should  also  be  included  her 
curious  attempt  to  combine  the  methods  of  Greek  acad 
emies  and  French  salons  in  the  public  assemblies,  held 
in  Boston,  which  she  called  conversations.  It  would  be 
easy  to  cite  abundant  ridicule  of  these  latter  perform 
ances.  Miss  Martineau  and  many  others  found  them 
terribly  pedantic,  and  the  element  of  pedantry  was  not 
lacking  in  them.  Yet  it  is  incontestable  that  those  who 
came  most  under  Margaret's  influence,  either  in  this 
way  or  in  her  more  formal  teaching,  found  an  inspira 
tion  that  lasted  them  for  life.  Her  own  comment  on 
her  gifts  hits  us  like  a  cold-water  douche:  "My  great 
talent  at  explanation,  tact  in  the  use  of  means,  and  im 
mediate  and  invariable  power  over  the  minds  of  my 
pupils."22  But  when  one  of  the  pupils  says  the  same 
thing,  we  cannot  but  accept  it:  "I  had  no  idea  that  I 
should  esteem  and,  much  more,  love  her.  I  found  my 
self  in  a  new  world  of  thought;  a  flood  of  light  irradi 
ated  all  that  I  had  seen  in  nature,  observed  in  life,  or 
read  in  books." 23 

And  all  this  adoration  was  not  dumb",  remote,  or 
incapable  of  personal  transference.    What  strikes  one 


142    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

most  of  all  in  Margaret's  relation  to  her  fellows  is  her 
unusual  faculty  of  eliciting  confession  from  the  most 
varying  sources.  One  does  not  commonly  expect  this 
in  persons  of  such  pronounced  and  self-assertive  tem 
perament.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  in  her.  Emerson 
was  immensely  impressed  by  it:  "She  drew  her  com 
panions  to  surprising  confessions." 24  Another  observer, 
who  had  himself  a  similar  experience,  regards  it  as  phe 
nomenal  :  "  I  judge  that  she  was  the  repository  of  more 
confidences  than  any  contemporary,"  he  says.  "  Women 
who  had  known  her  but  a  day  revealed  to  her  the  most 
jealously  guarded  secrets  of  their  lives.  .  .  .  Nor  were 
these  revelations  made  only  by  those  of  her  own  plane 
of  life,  but  chambermaids  and  seamstresses  unburdened 
their  souls  to  her,  seeking  and  receiving  her  counsel; 
while  children  found  her  a  delightful  playmate  and  a 
capital  friend."25 

Various  elements  enter  into  the  explanation  of  this 
gift  of  Margaret's  of  drawing  out  others'  souls.  As  to 
one  of  these  elements  all  observers  unite:  she  never 
betrayed  a  confidence  that  had  been  placed  in  her.  But 
there  was  far  more  to  it  than  that,  —  she  entered  into 
the  lives  and  hearts  of  others  with  the  widest  imagina 
tive  comprehension.  She  does,  indeed,  in  a  moment  of 
discouragement,  deny  kerself  sympathy:  "a  person  all 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI  143 

intellect  and  passion,  no  loveliness  of  character;  impetu 
ous,  without  tender  sympathy." 28  But  even  as  to  emo 
tional  sympathy  she  belied  herself.  And  her  power  of 
understanding  souls  of  all  colors  and  complexions,  of 
entering  into  quick  passion  and  aspiration  as  well  as 
slow  despair,  was  almost  unlimited.  Under  the  surface 
that  seemed  dull  and  dead  to  others  she  saw  the  glow 
ing  spark  and  her  breath  kindled  it  into  vital  fire.  She 
made  lives  over.  Especially  she  was  "the  interpreter 
and  savior  of  women,"  says  Mrs.  Cheney,  "for  there 
was  no  questioning,  no  suffering,  that  had  not  passed 
through  the  alembic  of  her  imagination  and  thought, 
if  not  of  her  actual  experience.  .  .  .  The  largeness  of 
her  life  and  thoughts  made  her  a  great  helper." 27 


II 

WITH  this  largeness  of  life  and  thought  we  may  pass 
from  Margaret's  social  and  external  relations  with 
others  to  the  inner  activity  of  her  intelligence.  It  may 
be  said  at  once  that  hers  was  not  above  all  a  logically 
creative  mind.  She  thought  out  no  speculative  systems, 
nor  even  gave  herself  with  slow  industry  to  criticizing 
the  systems  of  others.  But  her  intellect  was  keen,  vivid, 
illuminating,  —  dashed  right  into  the  heart  of  a  subject 


i44     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

or  of  a  person,  plucked  out  the  essential  nucleus  for 
herself  and  others  to  behold,  and  then  passed  on.  She 
hated  prejudice  and  convention,  wanted  the  primal  ele 
ments  of  things,  even  things  distressing  and  hateful. 
"With  her,"  she  said  of  a  friend,  "I  can  talk  of  any 
thing.  She  is  like  me.  She  is  able  to  look  facts  in  the 
face."28  And  again,  with  bitter  ardor:  "In  the  cham 
ber  of  death,  I  prayed  in  very  early  years,  'Give  me 
truth;  cheat  me  by  no  illusion.'"29  She  had  a  splendid 
analytical  power,  which  shows  more  in  brief  touches 
from  casual  writings  than  in  her  formal  works.  Thus, 
of  a  conversation  with  Emerson :  "  He  is  a  much  better 
companion  than  formerly,  —  for  once  he  would  talk 
obstinately  through  the  walk,  but  now  we  can  be  silent 
and  see  things  together."30  Or  more  generally:  "We 
need  to  hear  the  excuses  men  make  to  themselves  for 
their  worthlessness." 31 

As  is  natural  and  unavoidable,  with  a  person  who  has 
this  gift  of  analysis,  she  applied  it  first  of  all  and  con 
stantly  to  herself.  True,  she  felt  that  she  accomplished 
little  and  got  nowhere,  and  this  recognition  is  the  surest 
mark  of  her  power.  "  I  know  little  about  the  mystery 
of  life,  and  far  less  in  myself  than  in  others."32  Yet 
she  probed  and  probed,  with  inexhaustible,  quiet,  curious 
diligence,  and  she  is  not  one  of  the  least  profitable  of 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     145 

the  anatomizers  of  soul.  Hear  her  on  the  near  ap 
proach  of  death.  "On  this  subject  I  always  feel  that 
I  can  speak  with  some  certainty,  having  been  on  the 
verge  of  bodily  dissolution.  I  felt  at  that  time  disen 
gaged  from  the  body,  hovering,  and  calm."33  Again 
and  again  she  speaks  of  herself  with  quiet  detachment, 
judging  her  own  character  and  conduct,  good  and  evil, 
exactly  as  if  she  were  appraising  somebody  else.  One 
who  had  long  known  her  family  says  that  they  were 
peculiar  in  speaking  out  openly  all  the  things  which  we 
commonly  suppress  about  ourselves  and  express  only 
about  other  people.  This  was  certainly  true  of  Mar 
garet.  For  instance,  when  she  writes  to  her  brother, 
urging  him  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  younger  children, 
she  points  out  all  that  she  had  given  up  for  him.  "I 
do  not  say  this  to  pain  you,  or  to  make  you  more  grate 
ful  to  me  (for,  probably,  if  I  had  been  aware  at  the 
time  what  I  was  doing,  I  might  not  have  sacrificed 
myself  so)/' 34 

As  I  have  suggested  earlier,  it  is  to  this  exceptional 
instinct  of  analysis  and  calm-eyed  candor  that  we  are 
to  attribute  largely  those  violent  expressions  of  egotism 
which  are  so  astonishing.  When  Margaret  sighs,  "  Oh 
that  my  friends  would  teach  me  that  '  simple  art  of  not 
too  much ! '  How  can  I  expect  them  to  bear  the  cease- 


146    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

less  eloquence  of  my  nature?"38  she  is  really  sighing 
and  not  posing  at  all.  Indeed,  with  the  perfectly  candid 
recognition  of  her  powers,  she  combined  often  a  yearn 
ing  humility,  a  deep  desire  to  correct  herself  of  many 
faults.  How  charming  is  the  comment,  in  her  earlier 
love  letters,  on  a  friend  who  was  inclined  to  criticize 
her  weaknesses  —  or  excess  of  strength:  "I  think,  too, 
with  one  whose  judgment  I  valued,  I  should  receive 
fault-finding  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  meant,  and 
if  it  gave  me  pain,  should  be  more  likely  to  mend  than 
many  who  take  it  more  easily." 36  While  perhaps  some 
thing  even  nobler  and  larger  than  humility  permeates 
the  royal  sentence,  so  often  quoted  but  not  too  often, 
"  I  feel  as  if  there  was  plenty  of  room  in  the  universe 
for  my  faults,  and  as  if  I  could  not  spend  time  in  think 
ing  of  them,  when  so  many  things  interest  me  more." 3T 
It  is  in  connection  with  the  profound  study  of  her 
own  nature  as  well  as  of  the  nature  of  others  that  we 
should  consider  her  interesting  and  elaborate  theories 
of  self -development,  self-culture,  constant  spiritual 
progress.  In  this  she  was  no  doubt  greatly  influenced 
by  Goethe,  who  was  more  of  a  force  in  her  mental  life 
than  any  other  figure  of  the  past.  It  is  easy  to  make 
fun  of  such  deliberate  preoccupation  with  one's  self,  and 
most  of  us  will  maintain  that  action  rather  than  reflec- 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI  147 

tion  is  the  true  means  of  self -development.  The  greater 
part  of  Hawthorne's  savage  and  absurdly  exaggerated 
attack  on  Margaret  is  based  upon  a  ludicrous  over 
estimate  of  her  attempts  to  revolutionize  herself.  "It 
was  such  an  awful  joke,  that  she  should  have  re 
solved —  in  all  sincerity,  no  doubt — to  make  herself  the 
greatest,  wisest,  best  woman  of  the  age.  And  to  that 
end  she  set  to  work  on  her  strong,  heavy,  unpliable, 
and,  in  many  respects,  defective  and  evil  nature,  and 
adorned  it  with  a  mosaic  of  admirable  qualities,  such 
as  she  chose  to  possess ;  putting  in  here  a  splendid  talent 
and  there  a  moral  excellence,  and  polishing  each  sepa 
rate  piece,  and  the  whole  together,  till  it  seemed  to  shine 
afar  and  dazzle  all  who  saw  it.  She  took  credit  to  her 
self  for  having  been  her  own  Redeemer,  if  not  her  own 
Creator."38 

No  one  who  has  carefully  studied  Margaret's  own 
letters  or  other  writings,  or  the  testimony  of  those  who 
knew  her  best,  will  for  a  moment  accept  seriously  either 
these  or  any  other  of  Hawthorne's  severe  strictures 
for  more  than  an  outburst  of  ill-temper.  No  two  char 
acters  could  have  been  more  different  than  Hawthorne's 
and  Margaret's,  or,  if  they  had  some  points  of  resem 
blance,  they  would  have  clashed  on  those  resemblances 
more  than  on  their  differences.  As  to  the  self-culture, 


148    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

too  elaborate  theories  in  this  line  have  again  and  again 
defeated  themselves  in  their  most  intelligent  and  con 
scientious  exponents.  Margaret  came  to  see  this  in  the 
end.  Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that  no  effort  was  ever 
more  conscientious  than  hers.  Nor  can  it  be  denied 
that  the  effort  was  intelligently  controlled  and  that  it 
effected  probably  as  much  as  has  ever  been  effected  by 
any  human  being.  The  constitutional  disagreeableness 
which  I  have  suggested  in  beginning  this  study  dimin 
ished  constantly  with  the  progress  of  years.  The  nar 
rowness  of  egotism,  largely  fostered  in  youth  by  seclu 
sion  and  excessive  reading,  yielded  more  and  more  to 
the  mellowing  influences  of  wider  contact  with  human 
ity.  In  her  own  noble  phrase,  she  "unlearned  con 
tempt  " ; 39  and  what  positive  learning  can  be  finer  or 
more  difficult  than  that  ?  While  both  positive  and  nega 
tive  advancement  are  summed  up  in  the  earnest  motto 
which  she  adopted  in  her  youth  and  clung  to  always, 
however  differently  she  may  have  come  to  interpret  it: 
"Very  early  I  knew  that  the  only  object  in  life  was  to 
grow."40 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Margaret's  theories 
of  culture  included  much  more  than  mere  book-learning. 
Yet  her  achievements  in  this  line  were  remarkable.  Or 
perhaps  I  should  say  that  her  powers  were  even  more 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI  149 

remarkable  than  her  achievements.  She  herself,  in  a 
moment  of  unusual  discouragement,  declares :  "  I  have 
long  thought  my  mind  must  be  as  shallow  as  it  is 
vapid."41  But  it  was  certainly  neither  vapid  nor  shal 
low.  A  good  judge,  who'  knew  her  well,  speaks  of  "  the 
rapidity  with  which  she  appropriates  all  knowledge, 
joined  with  habits  of  severe  mental  discipline  (so  rare 
in  women,  and  in  literary  men  not  technically  'men  of 
science')."42  She  could  grasp  the  meaning  of  a  book 
swiftly,  fit  it  to  its  place  in  the  great  scheme  of  thought 
and  spiritual  movement,  then  hasten  to  something  else, 
perhaps  quite  different,  and  accomplish  the  same  result 
with  equal  ease  and  equal  sureness. 

Her  actual  possession  of  learning  was  far  less  than 
Mrs.  Ripley's.  She  had  a  less  broad  and  exact  com 
mand  of  languages;  she  took  little  interest  in  science, 
and  even  in  philosophy  she  could  not  be  called  an  ex 
haustive  student.  To  her,  —  and  more  and  more  as  she 
grew  older,  —  books  were  but  the  interpreters  of  life, 
and  her  keenest  and  most  thoughtful  study  was  given  to 
the  hearts  of  men. 

But  the  most  interesting  thing  about  her  studies,  as 
about  all  her  pursuits,  is  the  passion  with  which  she 
threw  herself  into  them.  Her  intellectual  effort  was 
not  a  calm  and  steady  flame,  like  Mrs.  Ripley's,  burn- 


150    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

ing  unaltered  and  unshaken  through  all  sorts  of  disturb 
ance  and  difficulty.  She  could  not  turn  quietly  and 
serenely  from  astronomy  to  botany,  from  German  to 
mathematics,  as  convenience  suggested  and  opportunity 
offered.  There  were  moments  of  spiritual  exaltation 
and  enthusiasm.  "  I  am  living  like  an  angel,  and  I  don't 
know  how  to  get  down/'43  But  these  times  were  paid 
for  in  exhaustion  and  depression  and  disgust.  "  I  never 
can  do  well  more  than  one  thing  at  a  time,  and  the  least 
thing  costs  me  so  much  thought  and  feeling;  others 
have  no  idea  of  it."44  Above  all,  she  lived  in  perpetual 
distraction.  A  thousand  cares  were  ever  crowding  upon 
her,  and  when  it  was  not  external  cares,  it  was  spiritual 
vexations  and  questions  and  perplexities.  "I  have 
learned  much  and  thought  little,"  she  complains,  "an 
assertion  which  seems  paradoxical  and  is  true.  I  faint 
with  desire  to  think  .  .  .  but  some  outward  requisition 
is  ever  knocking  at  the  door  of  my  mind  and  I  am  as 
ill  placed  as  regards  a  chance  to  think  as  a  haberdasher's 
prentice  or  the  President  of  Harvard  University." 45  So 
she  struggled  onward  in  a  constant  turmoil  of  effort 
and  aspiration,  and  if  her  mental  kingdom  was  in  some 
respects  ill-coordinated  and  ill-regulated,  at  least  she 
was  always  mentally  alive. 

Alive,  too,  in  other  aspects  of  spiritual  sensibility, 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     151 

besides  the  merely  intellectual.  In  painting  and  music, 
as  in  thought,  what  strikes  one  is  rather  the  effort  and 
passion  of  her  appreciation  than  its  amplitude  and  se 
curity.  She  touched  the  great  artists  widely  and  sought 
and  fought  to  make  their  achievement  part  of  her  soul, 
but  she  never  seems  to  have  entered  quite  fully  into 
their  calm  perfection.  The  same  is  true  of  religion.  It 
is  interesting  and  often  pathetic  to  see  her  humble,  earn 
est  desire  for  the  passion  of  the  mystic  and  the  Chris 
tian  hope.  "My  mind  often  burns  with  thoughts  on 
these  subjects  and  I  long  to  pour  out  my  soul  to  some 
person  of  superior  calmness  and  strength  and  fortunate 
in  more  accurate  knowledge.  I  should  feel  such  a  quiet 
ing  reaction.  But  generally  I  think  it  is  best  I  should 
go  through  these  conflicts  alone." 46  She  went  through 
many  of  them  and  they  resulted  in  the  formulation  of  the 
curious  "Credo/'  —  not  printed  until  very  recently, — 
which  aims  at  an  exactness  of  definition  such  as  neither 
Emerson  nor  Goethe  would  ever  have  attempted.  Doc- 
trinally  it  has  little  interest.  As  throwing  psychological 
light  on  Margaret  it  has  much,  for  example  in  the 
splendid  and  characteristic  phrase:  "For  myself,  I  be 
lieve  in  Christ  because  I  can  do  without  him."47 

But  the  charm  of  Margaret's  sensibility  and  depth  of 
spiritual  emotion  shows  much  better  in  simpler  things 


152     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

than  in  these  more  pretentious  regions  of  art  and 
thought.  She  felt  the  natural  world  with  peculiar  so 
lemnity  and  intensity.  This  is  evident  in  her  own  curi 
ous  account  of  the  experience  of  being  lost  alone  for 
a  whole  night  amid  the  Highland  mountains.  It  is 
much  more  evident  in  briefer  references  to  New  Eng 
land  woods  and  flowers  and  fields.  You  could  not  find 
a  better  antidote  to  Hawthorne's  harsh  judgment  than 
this  delicate  picture  of  open-air  life:  "Many,  many 
sweet  little  things  would  I  tell  you,  only  they  are  so 
very  little.  I  feel  just  now  as  if  I  could  live  and  die 
here.  I  am  out  in  the  open  air  all  the  time  except  about 
two  hours  in  the  early  morning.  And  now  the  moon 
is  fairly  gone  late  in  the  evening.  While  she  was  here, 
we  staid  out,  too.  Everything  seems  sweet  here,  so 
homely,  so  kindly;  the  old  people  chatting  so  contentedly, 
the  young  men  and  girls  laughing  together  in  the  fields 
—  not  vulgarly,  but  in  the  true  kinsfolk  way, — little 
children  singing  in  the  house  and  beneath  the  berry- 
bushes."48  Or  take  another  in  which  the  sense  of 
natural  beauty  rises  into  passion:  "One  night  when  I 
was  out  bathing  at  the  foot  of  the  tall  rock,  the  waters 
rippling  up  so  gently,  the  ships  gliding  full-sailed  and 
dreamy-white  over  a  silver  sea,  the  crags  above  me  with 
their  dewy  garlands  and  the  little  path  stealing  away 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     153 

in  shadow,  oh,  it  was  almost  too  beautiful  to  bear  and 
live."49 

When  one  reads  these  things,  one  wonders  why  Mar 
garet  did  not  leave  a  greater  name  in  actual  literature, 
why  her  very  numerous  writings  are  not  more  read 
to-day.  This  is  partly  owing,  no  doubt,  to  the  ephem 
eral  nature  of  her  subjects,  —  travel  pictures,  controver 
sial  essays,  criticisms  of  authors  who  have  not  lived 
themselves.  Even  in  these  buried  articles  there  is  much 
shrewd  observation  that  deserves  better  than  to  be  for 
gotten.  Still,  it  must  be  admitted  that  her  formal, 
printed  works  do  not  do  her  justice.  She  was  better 
than  any  of  them,  and  she  knew  it.  She  would  have 
liked  literary  glory  and  success,  none  more  so.  But 
she  had  a  proud  assurance  that  there  was  something 
finer  in  her  than  had  ever  come  out.  She  would  not, 
indeed,  have  used  of  herself,  nor  would  we  quite  have 
her  use,  her  own  words  as  to  a  minor  writer:  "What 
he  does  is  bad,  but  full  of  a  great  desire/'50  But  she 
does  say,  as  pathetically  as  justly:  "I  feel  within  my 
self  an  immense  power,  but  I  cannot  bring  it  out."51 
And  even  better  is  the  noble  prophecy  which  we  still 
believe  that  the  future  will  maintain:  "My  health  is 
frail;  my  earthly  life  is  shrunk  to  a  scanty  rill;  I  am 
little  better  than  an  aspiration,  which  the  ages  will  re- 


154    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

ward,  by  empowering  me  to  incessant  acts  of  vigorous 
beauty."52  It  was  as  such  an  inspiration  that  she  es 
tablished  her  conspicuous  place  among  the  writers  for 
the  "Dial"  and  the  group  of  transcendentalists  who 
made  New  England  famous  in  the  middle  of  the  nine 
teenth  century. 

Ill 

WE  have  yet  to  uncover  Margaret's  heart,  to  pass  deeper 
from  her  social  and  worldly  aspect  and  her  intellectual 
and  literary  interests  to  the  passion  and  the  struggle 
of  the  woman. 

To  begin  with,  she  was  a  lover,  always  a  lover,  even 
from  her  childhood.  In  her  own  family,  her  father, 
stern  like  herself  with  Puritan  self-restraint,  though  he 
was  proud  of  her  and  taught  her  and  developed  her,  did 
not  give  her  all  the  tenderness  she  needed.  How  much 
she  needed  it  appears  in  the  passionate  words  she  wrote 
long  after  his  death :  "  I  recollect  how  deep  the  anguish, 
how  deeper  still  the  want,  with  which  I  walked  alone 
in  hours  of  childish  passion  and  called  for  a  Father, 
after  saying  the  word  a  hundred  times."53  The  same 
depth  of  tenderness  she  gave  in  full  measure  to  her 
brothers  and  sisters. 

And  the  tenderness  was  not  mere  sentiment  but 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI  155 

showed  in  practical  action.  Mr.  Fuller's  death  left  his 
family  much  cramped  financially,  and  Margaret  was 
forced  to  deny  herself,  and  did  deny  herself  without 
hesitation,  the  spiritual  opportunities  she  so  much  craved 
that  her  brothers  and  sisters  might  have  proper  educa 
tion  and  advantages.  "Let  me  now  try  to  forget  my 
self  and  act  for  others'  sakes,"54  she  wrote,  and  she 
acted  as  she  wrote.  She  taught  the  younger  children; 
she  did  the  mending  and  the  cooking;  she  took  care  of 
her  mother,  who  was  often  ill,  and  of  her  grandmother, 
who  was  so  always. 

She  was  not  only  a  zealous  manager,  but  a  prudent 
and  intelligent  one.  She  understood  extremely  well  the 
value  of  money,  knew  how  to  husband  it,  and  how  to 
spend  it  so  as  to  make  it  go  farthest  and  buy  most. 
She  supplied  her  brothers  with  caution,  yet  with  wide 
liberality,  considering  her  limitations.  Above  all,  she 
stinted  herself  that  she  might  give,  not  only  in  her 
family  but  far  without.  "  Her  charities,  according  to 
her  means,  were  larger  than  those  of  any  other  whom  I 
ever  knew/'55  writes  one  who  had  much  experience  of 
Margaret — and  of  others.  Even  the  bitter  words 
wrung  from  her  in  the  anguish  of  the  last  miserable 
years  show  only  what  her  generosity  had  been  and  what 
we  are  sure  it  was  still.  "My  love  for  others  had 


156    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

turned  against  me.  I  had  given  to  other  sufferers  what 
I  now  needed  for  myself  so  deeply,  so  terribly;  I  shall 
never  again  be  perfectly,  be  religiously  generous;  I 
understand  why  others  are  not.  I  am  worse  than 
I  was/'56 

And  her  human  tenderness  extended  far  beyond  her 
own  family.  We  have  seen  that  she  wanted  to  be  ad 
mired  and  praised  and  worshiped.  She  wanted  to  be 
loved,  also,  and  perhaps  this  was  really  at  the  root  of 
the  less  commendable  instinct.  Amidst  all  the  popu 
larity  and  social  compliment  she  keenly  appreciated  what 
affection  was,  —  just  common  affection.  "Around  my 
path  how  much  humble  love  has  flowed.  These  every 
day  friends  never  forget  my  heart,  never  censure  me, 
make  no  demands  on  me,  load  me  with  gifts  and  serv 
ices,  and,  uncomplaining,  see  me  prefer  my  intellectual 
kindred."57  She  wanted  to  give  love,  too,  as  well  as 
get  it.  She  knew  well  at  all  times  of  her  life  that 
aching  emptiness  which  only  an  overpowering  devotion 
can  fill.  Do  we  not  get  a  glimpse  of  it  in  the  quiet 
words  describing  one  contact  with  youth  and  beauty? 
"  She  was  a  lovely  child  then,  and  happy,  but  my  heart 
ached,  and  I  lived  in  just  the  way  I  do  now."58 

Nothing  throws  more  light  on  this  human  craving 
than  Margaret's  relation  with  the  good  Emerson.  They 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     157 

sought  and  admired1  each  other  and  got  and  gave  much. 
But  Emerson,  who  so  abounded  in  kindness,  was  per 
haps  somewhat  limited  in  the  blind  longings  of  the  heart. 
He  speaks  of  "the  romantic  sacrifice  and  ecstatic 
fusion  " 59  of  Margaret's  friendships,  with  a  humorous 
acceptance  of  incomprehension.  Margaret  herself  com 
plains  of  his  coldness,  of  his  incapacity  for  the  highest 
surrender.  "He  met  men,  not  as  a  brother,  but  as  a 
critic."60  And  it  would  be  amusing,  if  it  were  not 
pathetic,  to  see  her  dissatisfaction  reflected  in  Emer 
son's  account  of  it.  She  called  his  friendship  commer 
cial,  he  says,  felt  that  he  could  not  prize  affection  unless 
it  chattered,  weighed  love  by  what  he  got  from  it  only. 
He  quotes  her  very  words :  "  The  deepest  love  that  ap 
proached  you  was,  in  your  eyes,  nothing  but  a  magic 
lantern,  always  bringing  out  pretty  shows  of  life."61 
Some  of  us  to-day  feel  too  keenly  what  Margaret  meant. 
But,  all  the  same,  how  noble  and  beautiful  is  the  humil 
ity  of  Emerson's  comment:  "As  I  did  not  understand 
the  discontent  then,  —  of  course,  I  cannot  now." 62 

The  question  naturally  arises,  how  about  love  with 
Margaret  in  the  ordinary  sense,  how  about  her  relations 
with  men  who  were  not  simply  friends  and  philosophers  ? 
In  her  earlier  years  there  is  no  definite  trace  of  any 
thing  of  the  sort.  She  had  few  of  the  attractions  which 


158    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

draw  young  men  and  none  of  the  coquetry  which  seeks 
to  draw  them.  Her  youthful  letters  and  reminiscences 
do  not  indicate  any  affection,  requited  or  unrequited. 
Then,  in  1844,  when  she  was  well  over  thirty,  she  fell 
in  with  a  brilliant  member  of  the  Jewish  race,  and  for 
a  year  she  kept  up  a  correspondence  with  him,  which 
has  been  printed  by  Mrs.  Howe,  and  which  shows  Mar 
garet  as  deeply  and  sentimentally  in  love  as  any  school 
girl 

It  is  true  that  the  old  egotism  still  hangs  about  her. 
Her  dear  companion  is  the  first  she  "  ever  had  who  could 
feel  every  little  shade  of  life  and  beauty  as  exquisitely 
as  myself/'63  But  she  relishes  even  the  shock  to  ego 
tism  which  comes  with  the  self-abandonment  of  this 
new  tenderness.  She  finds  a  strange  thrill  of  pleasure 
in  the  lover's  admonition,  "You  must  be  a  fool,  little 
girl."64  She  indulges  in  all  the  fantastic  freaks  of 
amorous  imagination,  the  ardor  for  an  impossible  union, 
the  frantic  questionings,  the  idle  self-tormentings,  —  not 
one  of  the  old,  well-known  symptoms  is  missing.  And 
to  complete  all,  she  assumes,  as  usual,  that  they  are  first 
known  to  her.  As  the  gay  French  comedy  puts  it,  En 
voila  encore  une  qui  croit  avoir  invente  I' amour. 

Yet  even  these  love-letters,  earnest  as  they  are,  genu 
ine  as  they  are,  and  most  important  in  the  light  they; 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     159 

throw  upon  Margaret's  character,  are  not  wholly  free 
from  a  suggestion  of  literature.  When  the  infatuation 
is  over,  her  characteristic  comment  is:  "I  shall  write 
a  sketch  of  it  and  turn  the  whole  to  account  in  a  lit 
erary  way,  since  the  affections  and  ideal  hopes  are  so 
unproductive." 65  There  had  been  more  head  than  heart 
in  the  matter,  and  to  touch  the  deepest  secrets  of  her 
nature  required  a  different  temperament  from  that  of 
the  brilliant  Jew.  After  a  few  months'  sojourn  in  Italy, 
she  found  such  a  temperament,  certainly  very  different, 
in  the  Marquis  Ossoli,  whom  she  married  secretly  at 
the  close  of  the  year  1847.  Judgments  about  Ossoli  are 
somewhat  varying.  The  utter  brutality  of  a  comment 
recorded  by  Hawthorne  defeats  itself  and  suggests  some 
obscure  ground  of  prejudice.  According  to  this  view 
the  marquis  had  no  claim  even  to  good-breeding,  let 
alone  intelligence,  "  in  short,  half  an  idiot,  and  without 
any  pretension  to  be  a  gentleman," 66  and  Margaret  mar 
ried  him  simply  from  curiosity  and  weariness.  Such 
an  extreme  statement  cannot  stand  a  moment  against 
other  evidence.  It  is  clear  that  Margaret's  husband  was 
not  literary  or  a  scholar.  She  had  doubtless  seen  quite 
enough  of  that  sort  of  gentry  in  her  varied  career.  But 
there  is  no  doubt  that  he  was  a  high-minded,  dignified 
gentleman,  and  that  he  was  devoted  to  her  with  an  at- 


160    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

tachment  which,  coming  from  a  temperament  like  his,  is 
in  itself  strong  testimony  to  the  nobleness  of  her  char 
acter.  As  for  the  ever-increasing  depth  of  her  regard 
for  him,  it  is  apparent  whenever  she  mentions  his  name. 
She  was  nearly  forty  years  old ;  she  had  been  through  a 
wide  variety  of  emotional  experiences;  she  knew  the  hu 
man  heart,  and  here  she  had  found  one  whose  grave 
earnestness  and  loyal  affection  could  be  counted  upon 
in  every  trial.  "Simple,  true,  delicate,  and  retiring/' 
she  calls  him,  in  well-weighed  wrords,  and  adds,  "  while 
some  of  my  friends  have  thought  me  exacting,  Ossoli 
has  outgone  my  expectations  in  the  disinterestedness, 
the  uncompromising  bounty,  of  his  every  action." 67 

Then  she  became  a  mother,  and  yet  one  more  pro 
found  chamber  of  her  heart  was  opened.  She  had  al 
ways  loved  children  and  had  had  a  peculiar  power  of 
drawing  their  confidence,  as  that  of  their  elders.  She 
longed  for  motherhood,  "my  heart  was  too  suffocated 
without  a  child  of  my  own."68  Yet  she  longed  with 
an  unusual  and  beautiful  humility:  "I  am  too  rough 
and  blurred  an  image  of  the  Creator,  to  become  a  be- 
stower  of  life."  e9  When  her  son  was  born,  she  seemed 
almost  to  forget  her  existence  in  his.  Her  brain  was 
all  plans  for  rearing  and  guiding  and  helping  him.  His 
illness  shakes  her  faith  more  than  anything  else  had  ever 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     161 

done  before.  His  health  and  gayety  make  her  gay  when 
all  is  troubled  around  her. 

For  these  strange,  new  experiences  had  come  to  her 
in  a  troubled  world.  Her  husband  was  thickly  con 
cerned  in  the  Italian  revolution,  and  she  herself  gave 
all  her  natural  ardor  to  the  coming  of  a  new  era  in  the 
country  she  had  loved  and  known  so  well.  As  battles 
were  fought  and  men  were  wounded  and  suffering,  she 
visited  the  hospitals,  comforted  the  dying,  cheered  and 
tended  the  long  and  solitary  hours  of  recovery.  "A 
mild  saint  and  ministering  angel:  that  seems  to  have 
been  the  impression  made  by  her  at  Rome  upon  those 
who  knew  her  well,"  70  writes  one  friend.  She  shrinks 
at  first:  "I  had  no  idea  before,  how  terrible  gunshot- 
wounds'  and  wound- fever  are  " ; 71  but  these  tremors  are 
instantly  overcome,  and  she  shows  the  same  power  over 
the  cruder  forms  of  human  suffering  that  she  had 
tendered  to  the  wayward  struggles  of  the  spirit.  "  How 
long  will  the  Signora  stay?  When  will  the  Signora 
come  again?"72  was  the  eager  murmur  from  the  hearts 
she  had  cheered  and  comforted. 

It  will  be  asked,  where  was  the  old  Margaret,  the 
disagreeable  Margaret,  the  harsh,  dominating,  self- 
willed  egotism?  Not  wholly  dead,  doubtless.  She  her 
self  says:  "In  the  foundation  of  my  character,  in  my 


162    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

aims  I  am  always  the  same."73  So  are  we  all.  But 
at  least  her  heart  had  been  immensely  changed  and 
modified  by  love  and  pity.  She  had  suffered  in  life 
far  more  than  she  had  enjoyed,  she  says,  and  suffering 
changes  all  hearts  one  way  or  the  other.  Ambition? 
She  still  cherishes  it  in  a  manner,  still  hopes  to  be  a 
great  writer,  plans  a  history  of  the  noble  doings  in  Italy, 
which  was  lost  with  her,  to  the  regret  of  many.  Self- 
culture,  all  the  fine  Goethean  theories  ?  ^Oh,  perhaps  she 
has  them,  but  she  has  at  last  come  to  know  the  great 
secret,  —  that  the  height  of  self -culture  is  to  forget 
culture  and  to  forget  self;  that  he  that  loseth  his 
life  shall  find  it.  And  in  the  pity  of  her  struggle — 
struggle  with  health,  struggle  with  narrow  circum 
stances,  struggle  with  war  and  the  ruins  of  war  —  her 
courage  almost  ebbs  away  in  a  languishing  cry :  "  Yes ;  I 
am  weary,  and  faith  soars  and  sings  no  more.  Nothing 
is  left  good  of  me,  except  at  the  bottom  of  the  heart  a 
melting  tenderness." 74  Surely  a  strange  utterance  from 
the  haughty  spirit  of  earlier  years. 

So  the  high  Italian  dream  was  over.  There  was  noth 
ing  left  for  Margaret  and  her  husband  among  his  people, 
and  her  thoughts  turned  again  to  home.  She  would 
go  back  to  America,  would  strive  once  more  to  gain 
recognition  of  her  powers,  aiming  rather  at  others* 


MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI     163 

profit  than  her  own.  She  accepted  the  task,  made  such 
preparations  as  she  could.  But  her  heart  was  heavy, 
weighed  down  with  undue,  unreasonable  fear.  "I  am 
become  a  miserable  coward.  I  fear  heat  and  cold  and 
even  mosquitoes.  I  fear  terribly  the  voyage  home,  fear 
biting  poverty." 75  Everything  connected  with  her  jour 
ney  seemed  to  turn  into  sad  omen,  or  so  she  read  it  in 
her  doubting  soul.  At  the  very  last  moment  the  fore 
boding  was  so  heavy  that  she  found  it  difficult  to  force 
herself  to  go  on  board  the  vessel.  She  did  so,  and  all 
her  fears  were  realized.  She  passed  the  Atlantic  safely, 
only  to  be  wrecked  on  Fire  Island  beach  in  July,  1850. 
We  need  not  analyze  the  extensive  investigations  and 
confused  narratives  of  the  final  disaster.  It  is  enough  to 
know  that  Margaret  perished  with  her  husband  and 
child,  as  she  would  have  wished. 

It  was  a  pathetic,  tragic  end  to  a  tragic  career.  We 
certainly  cannot  say  that  Margaret's  life  was  wasted 
when  we  appreciate  her  immense  influence  upon  her  con 
temporaries  and  those  who  came  after  her.  Yet  it  does 
not  seem  as  if  her  achievement  matched  her  powers. 
She  was  a  woman  of  marvelous  complexity,  like  all 
women,  and  all  men,  and  her  complexity  strikes  you 
with  tenfold  force  because  she  went  out  like  a  candle 
when  a  window  is  suddenly  opened'  into  great  night. 


VI 

LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT 


CHRONOLOGY 

Louisa  May  Alcott 

Born  in  Germantown,  Pennsylvania,  November  29,  1832. 

Grew  up  mainly  in  Concord  and  Boston. 

Nursed  in  Washington  hospitals,  1862-1863. 

"Little  Women"  published  October,  1868. 

In  Europe,  1865-1866  and  1870-1871,, 

Died  March  6,  1888. 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT 


VI 
LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT 

I 

HER  father  thought  himself  a  philosopher.  His  family 
agreed  with  him.  So  did  his  friend  and  contemporary, 
Emerson,  and  a  few  others.  He  was  at  any  rate  a  phi 
losopher  in  his  complete  inability  to  earn  or  to  keep 
money.  Her  mother  was  by  nature  a  noble  and  charm 
ing  woman,  by  profession  a  household  drudge.  Louisa1 
and  her  three  sisters  were  born  in  odd  corners  between 
1830  and  1840  and  grew  up  in  Concord  and  elsewhere. 
They  knew  a  little,  quite  enough,  about  philosophy  and  a 
great  deal  about  drudgery.  Louisa  determined  in  early 
youth  to  eschew  philosophy  and  drudgery  both,  to  be  in 
dependent,  and  to  earn  an  honest  livelihood  for  herself 
and  her  family.  She  did  it,  wrote  books  that  charmed 
and  paid,  and  died  wornout  before  she  was  old,  but  with 
a  comfortable  lapful  of  glory. 

I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  the  Alcotts'  poverty  was ' 
sordid  or  pitiable.    Innate  dignity  of  character,  sweet 
ness  and  natural  cheerfulness,  kept  it  from  being  any 
thing  of  the  kind.    If  they  had  not  money,  they  had  high 


168    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

ideals;  and  high  ideals  afford  a  certain  substitute  for 
comfort,  after  they  have  thrust  it  out  of  doors.  No 
doubt,  also,  the  rugged  discipline  of  privation  fits  souls 
better  for  the  ups  and  downs  of  life,  which,  for  most 
men  and  women,  mean  more  hardship  than  comfort. 
At  the  same  time,  to  understand  Louisa  Alcott,  what 
she  did  and  what  she  was,  we  must  keep  the  bitterness 
of  youthful  poverty  before  us,  the  perpetual  struggle  to 
get  clothes  and  food  and  other  necessaries,  the  burden  of 
debts  and  charity,  the  fret  and  strain  of  nerves  worn 
with  anxiety  and  endeavor,  the  endless  uncertainty 
about  the  future.  "  It  was  characteristic  of  this  family 
that  they  never  were  conquered  by  their  surroundings/'  * 
says  the  biographer.  This  is  true ;  yet  such  experiences 
fray  the  edges  of  the  soul,  when  they  do  not  impair  its 
substance.  Louisa's  soul  was  frayed.  Poverty  bit  her 
like  a  north  wind,  spurred  to  effort,  yet  chilled  and  tor 
tured  just  the  same.  "  Little  Lu  began  early  to  feel  the 
family  cares  and  peculiar  trials,"  2  she  says  of  her  child 
hood.  In  her  young- womanhood,  when  just  beginning 
to  see  her  way,  she  is  hampered  in  the  walks  she  likes 
because  of  "stockings  with  a  profusion  of  toe,  but  no 
heel,  and  shoes  with  plenty  of  heel,  but  a  paucity  of 
toe." 3  Later  still,  when  the  world  ought  to  have  been 
going  well  with  her,  her  cry  is,  "  If  I  think  of  my  woes 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  169 

I  fall  into  a  vortex  of  debts,  dishpans,  and  despondency 
awful  to  see." 4 

The  nature  of  these  troubles  and  the  depth  of  them 
were  specially  evident  to  her,  because  she  was  born  with 
a  shrewd  native  wit  and  keen  intelligence.  Her  edu 
cation  was  somewhat  erratic,  furnished  mainly  by  her 
father  from  his  wide  but  heterogeneous  store  and  with 
eccentric  methods.  From  her  childhood  she  was  an  im 
petuous  reader,  of  all  sorts  of  books  and  in  all  sorts  of 
ways  and  places.  She  read  stories  and  poems,  and  more 
serious  writings,  when  the  whim  seized  her.  Goethe,  for 
example,  she  liked  early  and  praised  late,  though  I  do 
not  know  that  much  of  Goethe  is  to  be  seen  in  her  life  or 
in  her  best-known  books.  Above  all,  she  employed  her 
brain  for  practical  objects,  loved  mental  method  and 
tidiness.  "I  used  to  imagine  my  mind  a  room  in  con 
fusion,  and  I  was  to  put  it  in  order ;  so  I  swept  out  use 
less  thoughts  and  dusted  foolish  fancies  away,  and 
furnished  it  with  good  resolutions  and  began  again.  But 
cobwebs  get  in.  I  'm  not  a  good  housekeeper,  and  never 
get  my  room  in  nice  order." 5  And  with  the  same  practi 
cal  tendency  she  analyzed  all  things  about  her  and  all 
men  and  women.  Her  father's  various  contacts  brought 
many  people  to  his  door,  and  Louisa  learned  early  to 
distinguish.  "A  curious  jumble  of  fools  and  philoso- 


i;o    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

phers," 6  she  says  calmly  of  one  of  his  beloved  clubs.  No 
doubt  she  would  have  given  the  same  verdict  on  the 
world  in  general  and  with  the  same  wise  caution  as  to 
deciding  the  proportions.  Nor  was  she  less  ready  to 
analyze  herself,  as  portrayed  in  one  of  her  stories. 
"Much  describing  of  other  people's  passions  and  feel 
ings  set  her  to  studying  and  speculating  about  her  own 
—  a  morbid  amusement,  in  which  healthy  young  minds 
do  not  voluntarily  indulge." 7 

What  marked  her  character  in  all  this  was  honesty, 
sincerity,  straightforward  simplicity.  Like  Jo  in  "  Little 
Women,"  who  follows  her  creatress  so  closely,  Louisa, 
as  a  child,  had  more  of  the  boy  than  of  the  girl  about 
her,  did  not  care  for  frills  or  flounces,  did  not  care  for 
dances  or  teas,  liked  fresh  air  and  fresh  thoughts  and 
hearty  quarrels  and  forgetful  reconciliations.  She 
would  shake  your  hand  and  look  in  your  eye  and  make 
you  trust  her.  Jo's  wild  words  were  always  getting  her 
into  scrapes.  "  Oh,  my  tongue,  my  abominable  tongue ! 
Why  can't  I  learn  to  keep  it  quiet?"8  So  she  sighed, 
and  so  Louisa  had  often  sighed  before  her.  But  with 
the  outspokenness  went  a  splendid  veracity  and  a  loath 
ing  for  what  was  false  or  mean  or  cowardly.  "  With  all 
her  imagination  and  romance,  Miss  Alcott  was  a  tre 
mendous  destroyer  of  illusions,"9  says  Mrs.  Cheney; 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  171 

"Oh,  wicked  L.  M.  A.,  who  hates  sham  and  loves  a 
joke," 10  says  Miss  Alcott  herself. 

The  disposition  to  excessive  analysis  and  great  frank 
ness  in  expressing  the  results  of  the  same  are  not 
especially  favorable  to  social  popularity  or  success,  and 
it  does  not  appear  that  Louisa  had  these  things  or  wished 
to  have  them.  Here  again  Jo  renders  her  creatress  very 
faithfully.  She  was  perfectly  capable  of  having  a  jolly 
time  in  company ;  in  fact,  when  she  was  in  the  mood  and 
with  those  she  liked,  she  could  be  full  of  fun  and  frolic, 
could  lead  everybody  in  wild  laughter  and  joyous  pranks 
and  merriment.  She  could  run  into  a  party  of  strangers 
at  the  seashore  and  be  gay  with  them.  "  Found  a  family 
of  six  pretty  daughters,  a  pleasant  mother,  and  a  father 
who  was  an  image  of  one  of  the  Cheeryble  brothers. 
Had  a  jolly  time  boating,  driving,  charading,  dancing, 
and  picnicking.  One  mild  moonlight  night  a  party  of  us 
camped  out  on  Norman's  Woe,  and  had  a  splendid  time, 
lying  on  the  rocks  singing,  talking,  sleeping,  and  riot 
ing  up  and  down."  n  But  usually  she  was  shy  with 
strangers,  perhaps  shyer  with  people  she  knew  or  half 
knew,  had  no  patience  with  starched  fashions  or  fine 
manners,  liked  quiet,  old  garments,  old  habits,  and  espe 
cially  the  society  of  her  own  soul.  She  complains  that 
her  sister  "  does  n't  enjoy  quiet  corners  as  I  do," 12  and 


172    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

she  complains  further,  through  the  mouth  of  Jo,  that 
"it's  easier  for  me  to  risk  my  life  for  a  person  than  to  be 
pleasant  to  him  when  I  don't  feel  like  it."13 

With  this  disposition  we  might  expect  her  to  have  a 
small  list  of  friends,  but  those  very  near  and  dear.  I  do 
not  find  it  so.  "  She  did  not  encourage  many  intima 
cies,"  says  Mrs.  Cheney.  Though  reasonably  indifferent 
to  the  conventions,  she  would  not  have  inclined  to  keep 
up  any  especially  confidential  relations  with  men.  As  for 
women,  she  wrote  of  her  younger  days,  "Never  liked 
girls,  or  knew  many,  except  my  sisters."14  If  she  did 
not  make  women  friends  in  her  youth,  she  was  not  likely 
to  in  age. 

All  her  affection,  all  her  personal  devotion,  seem  to 
have  been  concentrated  upon  her  family,  and  from  child 
hood  till  death  her  relations  with  them  were  close  and 
unbroken.  How  dearly  she  loved  her  sisters  shines 
everywhere  through  the  faithful  family  picture  pre 
served  in  "  Little  Women,"  and  the  peculiar  tenderness 
Jo  gave  to  Beth  is  but  an  exact  reflection  of  what  the 
real  Elizabeth  received  from  the  real  Louisa.  In  "  Little 
Women"  the  affection  is  made  only  more  genuine  by  the 
trifluig  tiffs  and  jars  which  always  occur  in  nature,  if 
not  always  in  books.  So  in  Louisa's  journal  her  admir 
able  frankness  carefully  records  an  occasional  freak  or, 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  173 

sparkle  of  irritation  or  jealously.  "I  feel  very  moral 
to-day,  having  'done  a  big  wash  alone,  baked,  swept  the 
house,  picked  the  hops,  got  dinner,  and  written  a  chapter 
in  '  Moods.'  May  gets  exhausted  with  work,  though  she 
walks  six  miles  without  a  murmur." 15  Again,  of  the 
same  younger  sister:  "How  different  our  lives  are  just 
now!  —  I  so  lonely,  sad,  and  sick;  she  so  happy,  well 
and  blest.  She  always  had  the  cream  of  things,  and  de 
served  it.  My  time  is  yet  to  come  somewhere  else,  when 
I  am  ready  for  it." 16  Perhaps  the  sympathy  between  Jo 
and  Amy  in  the  story  was  less  complete  than  in  the  case 
of  the  older  sisters.  Yet  the  chief  interest  of  Louisa's 
later  years  was  her  love  for  the  child  her  sister  May  had 
left  her. 

For  her  fatfier,  as  for  her  sisters,  she  cherished  a 
devoted  attachment.  No  doubt  in  this,  as  in  the  other, 
there  were  human  flaws.  At  times  she  implies  a  gentle 
wish  that  he  might  have  'done  a  little  more  for  the  com 
fort  of  his  family  even  if  a  little  less  for  their  eternal 
salvation.  But  this  was  momentary.  Her  usual  atti 
tude  was  one  of  tender  and  affectionate  devotion,  of 
entire  and  reverent  appreciation  of  that  pure  and  un 
worldly  spirit.  Emerson  tells  her  that  her  father  might 
have  talked  with  Plato. 17  She  is  delighted  and  thinks 
of  him  as  Plato  and  often  calls  him  Plato  afterward. 


174    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

How  admirable  in  its  blending  of  elements  is  her  pic 
ture  of  his  return  from  one  of  his  unprofitable  wan 
derings:  "His  dress  was  neat  and  poor.  He  looked 
cold  and  thin  as  an  icicle,  but  serene  as  God."1*  To 
her  he  was  God  in  a  manner,  and  with  reasonable  dis 
counts. 

But  with  her  mother  there  seem  to  have  been  no  dis 
counts  whatever.  The  affection  between  them  was  per 
fect  and  holy  and  enduring.  Her  mother  understood 
her,  —  all  her  wild  ways  and  lawless  desires  and  weak 
nesses  and  untrimmed  strength.  It  was  to  her  mother 
that  she  turned  in  joy  and  trouble,  and  in  both  she  never 
failed  to  find  the  response  she  looked  for.  After  her 
mother's  death  she  writes :  "  I  never  wish  her  back,  but 
a  great  warmth  seems  gone  out  of  life,  and  there  is  no 
motive  to  go  on  now."19  Yet  if  there  was  nothing  left 
to  do,  there  was  comfort  in  the  thought  of  what  she  had 
done.  For  she  was  able  to  write,  a  few  years  before, 
"Had  the  pleasure  of  providing  Marmee  with  many 
comforts,  and  keeping  the  hounds  of  care  and  debt  from 
worrying  her.  She  sits  at  rest  in  her  sunny  room,  and 
that  is  better  than  any  amount  of  fame  to  me." 20 

So  we  see  that  when  Jo  cried,  in  her  enthusiastic 
fashion,  "  I  do  think  that  families  are  the  most  beautiful 
things  in  all  the  world!"21  it  was  a  simple  transcript 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  175 

from  nature.  Also,  it  is  most  decidedly  to  be  observed 
that  Louisa's  regard  for  her  family  was  by  no  means 
mere  sentiment,  but  a  matter  of  strenuous  practical 
effort.  Indeed,  it  is  not  certain  that  the  conscientious 
sense  of  duty  is  not  even  more  prominent  in  her  domestic 
relations  than  affection  itself.  "  Duty's  faithful  child," 22 
her  father  called  her,  and  the  faithfulness  of  her  duty 
meant  more  to  him  and  his  than  anything  else  in  the 
world.  I  have  dwelt  already  upon  her  poignant  appre 
ciation  of  the  hardships  and  privations  of  her  childhood. 
Though  she  bore  these  with  reasonable  patience,  she 
early  and  constantly  manifested  a  distinct  determina 
tion  to  escape  from  them.  "  I  wish  I  was  rich,  I  was  good, 
and  we  were  all  a  happy  family  this  day." 23  Note  even 
here  that  the  wish  is  general  and  that  she  wants  to  save 
them  all  from  trials  as  well  as  herself.  Her  own  comfort 
and  ease  she  was  ready  to  sacrifice  and  did  sacrifice.  Did 
May  need  a  new  bonnet?  She  should  have  it  and  Louisa 
would  get  on  with  a  refurbished  old  one.  Did  money 
come  in  somewhat  more  freely?  Louisa  got  mighty  little 
of  it  herself.  There  were  so  many  mouths  to  fill  and 
clothes  to  buy  and  bills  to  pay.  She  would  give  any 
thing  and  give  up  anything  that  she  had  to  give  or  give 
up.  The  sacrifice  of  hair,  which  Jo  accomplished  with 
so  many  tears,  was  not  actually  achieved  in  Louisa's 


176    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

case,  but  she  was  ready  to  make  it,  —  and  who  doubts 
that  she  would  have  made  it? 

Yet  she  did  not  relish  sacrifice,  or  ugly  things,  or  petty 
dependence.  She  was  bound  to  get  out  of  the  rut  she 
was  born  in;  how,  she  did  not  care,  so  long  as  she  did 
nothing  dishonest  or  unworthy.  Debts,  —  she  certainly 
would  not  have  debts ;  but  comfort  she  would  have  and 
would  pay  for  it.  She  would  prove  that  "though  an 
Alcott  I  can  support  myself."24  When  she  was  but  a 
child  she  went  out  alone  into  the  fields,  and  voweS  with 
bitter  energy:  "I  will  do  something  by-and-by.  Don't 
care  what,  teach,  sew,  act,  write,  anything  to  help  the 
family ;  and  I  '11  be  rich  and  famous  and  happy  before  I 
die,  see  if  I  won't." 25 

II 

IT  would  be  of  course  quite  false  to  imply  that  Miss 
Alcott  was  a  wholly  practical,  even  mercenary,  person, 
who  lived  and  wrote  for  money  only,  or  that  the  rugged 
experiences  of  her  youth  had  crushed  out  of  her  sensi 
bility  and  grace  and  imagination  and  all  the  varied 
responses  which  are  supposed  to  constitute  the  artistic 
temperament  It  is  true,  she  had  one  artistic  represen 
tative  in  her  family,  and  the  consciousness  of  old  bon 
nets  refurbished  on  that  account  may  have  somewhat  re- 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  .177 

pressed  the  genial  flow  of  aesthetic  impulse  in  her  own 
character.  But  she  had  abundance  of  wayward  emotion, 
nevertheless,  and  if  she  subdued  it  in  one  form,  it  es 
caped  in  another.  "  Experiences  go  deep  with  me/'28  she 
said,  and  it  was  true.  It  does  not  appear  that  she  had 
any  especial  taste  for  the  arts.  Painting  she  refers  to 
occasionally  with  mild  enthusiasm,  music  with  little 
more.  Perhaps  we  cannot  quite  take  the  Lavinia  of 
"  Shawl  Straps "  as  autobiographical,  but  her  journal 
sounds  uncommonly  like  Louisa:  "Acres  of  pictures. 
Like  about  six  out  of  the  lot:"27  again,  "I  am  glad  to 
have  seen  this  classical  cesspool  (Rome),  and  still  more 
glad  to  have  got  out  of  it  alive." 28  Nature  appealed  to 
her,  of  course,  as  it  must  have  done  to  the  child  of  Con 
cord  and  the  worshiper  of  Emerson.  Still,  the  rendering 
of  it  in  her  writings,  "Flower  Stories,"  etc.,  and  even 
in  the  best  of  her  poems,  "  Thoreau's  Flute,"  cannot  be 
said  to  be  profound.  Her  nature  feeling  is  much  more 
attractive  in  the  brief  touches  of  her  Journal :  "  I  had  an 
early  run  in  the  woods  before  the  dew  was  off  the  grass. 
The  moss  was  like  velvet,  and  as  I  ran  under  the  arches 
of  yellow  and  red  leaves  I  sang  for  joy,  my  heart  was  so 
bright  and  the  world  so  beautiful." 29  Also,  she  had  a 
keen  sense  of  the  pleasant  and  graceful  ornaments  of 
life,  all  the  more  keen  because  her  childhood  had  been  so 


i;8    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

barren  of  such  things,  "  How  I  wish  I  could  be  with 
you,  enjoying  what  I  have  always  longed  for,  —  fine 
people,  fine  amusements,  and  fine  books."30  She  liked 
these  things,  though  she  liked  other  things  still  more. 
"I  love  luxury,  but  freedom  and  independence  better."31 
Her  sensibility  and  quick  emotion  showed,  however, 
far  less  in  artistic  enjoyment  than  in  the  inner  play 
and  shifting  movements  of  her  own  spirit.  The  sudden 
variety  of  nature  she  sees  reflected  in  herself.  "  It  was 
a  mild,  windy  day,  very  like  me  in  its  fitful  changes  of 
sunshine  and  shade." 32  She  was  a  creature  of  moods 
and  fancies,  smiles  and  tears,  hopes  and  discourage 
ments,  as  we  all  are,  but  more  than  most  of  us.  From  her 
childhood  she  liked  to  wander,  had  roaming  limbs  and 
a  roaming  soul.  She  "wanted  to  see  every  thing,  do 
every  thing,  and  go  every  where."33  She  loved  move 
ment,  activity,  boys'  sports  and  boys'  exercise:  "I  al 
ways  thought  I  must  have  been  a  deer  or  a  horse  in  some 
former  state,  because  it  was  such  a  joy  to  run." 34  Then 
she  got  tired  and  got  cross,  and  when  she  was  young 
said  bitter  things  and  repented  them,  and  when  she  grew 
older  would  have  liked  to  say  them  and  repented  that 
also.  And  the  ill-temper  shifted  suddenly  and  madly  to 
laughter,  merry  drollery,  wild  sallies,  quips,  and  teasing 
frolics,  full  well  remembered  by  lovers  of  "  Little 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  179 

Women."     "The  jocosity  of  my  nature  will  gush  out 
when  it  gets  a  chance," 3B  she  says. 

Sometimes  the  same  wild  spirit  would  rise  higher  into 
a  state  of  eager  exhilaration  and  excitement.  She  longed 
for  change,  adventure,  even  suffering.  She  put  melo 
drama  into  her  stories;  she  would  have  liked  to  put  it 
into  her  life.  When  the  future  seems  peculiarly  uncer 
tain,  she  writes :  "It 's  a  queer  way  to  live,  but  dramatic, 
and  I  rather  like  it;  for  we  never  know  what  is  to  come 
next."36  And  again  follows  the  reaction  and  depres 
sion,  as  deep  as  the  excitement  was  high  and  exhila 
rating,  depression  far  more  serious  than  mere  super 
ficial  temper,  seizing  and  shaking  the  root-fibers  of  the 
soul.  In  her  more  elaborate  novels,  "  Moods  "  and  "  A 
Modern  Mephistopheles,"  she  has  analyzed  these  spir 
itual  variations,  perhaps  with  some  exaggeration,  but 
with  an  evident  autobiographical  basis ;  and  her  heroine's 
miseries  certainly  reflect  her  own.  Tears  she  does  not 
often  yield  to,  but  when  she  weeps,  she  does  it  thor 
oughly:  "As  I  seldom  indulge  in  this  moist  misery,  I 
like  to  enjoy  it  with  all  my  might,  when  I  do." 37 

Her  active  conscience  prompts  her  to  resist,  to  bear  up 
against  real  trial  and  the  still  worse  monotony  of  every 
day  care.  There  is  an  education  for  her  in  grief,  she 
says ;  she  must  make  the  best  of  it  and  profit  by  it.  There 


i8o    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

is  a  pleasure  in  drudgery,  she  says,  if  one  can  only  find 
it.  "  A  dull,  heavy  month,  grubbing  in  the  kitchen,  sew 
ing,  cleaning  house,  and  trying  to  like  my  duty/' 38  But 
she  does  n't  like  it,  and  it  wears,  and  the  immortal  spirit 
loses  its  lightness  and  its  freshness  and  is  almost  ready 
to  give  up  the  fight :  "  So  every  day  is  a  battle,  and  I  'm 
so  tired  I  don't  want  to  live;  only  it 's  cowardly  to  die  till 
you  have  done  something."39  Even,  on  one  dark  day, 
all  further  struggle  came  to  seem  impossible,  and  as  she 
passed  the  running  tide  on  her  way  to  Boston,  she  almost 
made  up  her  mind  not  to  pass  it.  But  she  did,  and  her 
"fit  of  despair  was  soon  over  .  .  .  and  I  went  home 
resolved  to  take  Fate  by  the  throat  and  shake  a  living 
out  of  her." 40  Afterwards  the  little  experience  served 
to  make  a  story,  as  it  has  done  for  other  writers  and 
sufferers. 

It  will  be  asked  how  far  matters  of  the  heart  entered 
into  these  depressions  and  despairs  in  Miss  Alcott's 
case.  Directly,  not  very  much.  It  is  true  that  in  the 
story  just  referred  to  she  suggests  love  or  the  lack  of  it  as 
the  exciting  cause  for  suicide.  "  It  is  not  always  want, 
insanity,  or  sin  that  drives  women  to  desperate  deaths; 
often  it  is  a  dreadful  loneliness  of  heart,  a  hunger  for 
home  and  friends,  worse  than  starvation,  a  bitter  sense 
of  wrong  in  being  denied  the  tender  ties,  the  pleasant 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  181 

duties,  the  sweet  rewards  that  can  make  the  humblest  life 
happy." 41  But  there  is  no  indication  that,  in  her  own  case, 
any  disappointed  love,  any  ungratified  longing,  was  added 
to  the  otherwise  sufficient  cares  that  weighed  down  her 
mercurial  spirit.  Though  the  story  of  Jo  is  so  largely  au 
tobiographical,  the  marriage  to  Professor  Bhaer,  in  itself 
not  exceptionally  romantic,  is  pure  invention,  and  there 
is  nothing  else  to  show  that  Louisa's  heart  was  ever  seri 
ously  touched.  She  had  at  least  one  offer  of  marriage, 
and  considered  accepting  it  as  another  form  of  self-sacri 
fice  for  the  benefit  of  her  suffering  family.42  From  this, 
even  more  disastrous  than  the  projected  tonsorial  mar 
tyrdom,  she  was  happily  dissuaded ;  and  if  other  similar 
opportunities  occurred,  they  are  not  mentioned. 

She  would  even  have  us  believe  —  and  so  would  her 
biographer  —  that  she  took  little  interest  in  love  matters 
and  introduced  them  in  her  books  for  purposes  of  sale 
and  popular  success.  "She  always  said  that  she  got 
tired  of  everybody,"  says  Mrs.  Cheney,  aand  felt  sure 
that  she  should  of  her  husband  if  she  married."43  Miss 
Alcott  herself  expresses  some  interest  in  possible  children 
of  her  own  and  a  certain  admiration  for  babies,  but  she 
has  observed  that  few  marriages  are  happy  ones 44  and 
she  thinks  that  "  liberty  is  a  better  husband  than  love  to 
many  of  us." 4B 


182    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

This  may  be  all  very  true.  Nevertheless,  it  will  hardly 
be  denied  that  many  of  her  stories  reek  with  amorous 
ness.  Perhaps  this  was  precisely  because  the  subject 
did  not  naturally  interest  her,  and,  being  anxious  to  deal 
with  it  enough  to  please  the  public  and  make  money,  she 
dealt  with  it  too  much.  But  the  explanation  seems  rather 
far-fetched,  and  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  she  had  all 
a  woman's  interest  in  lovers,  whatever  may  have  been 
her  opinion  of  husbands.  Her  references  to  personal 
appearance,  both  her  own  and  others',  show  a  due  sensi 
tiveness  to  natural  charms  and  to  their  possible  appeal 
to  the  other  sex.  If  she  looks  in  the  glass,  she  tries  "  to 
keep  down  vanity  about  my  long  hair,  my  well-shaped 
head,  and  my  good  nose/'46  but  she  is  sufficiently  aware 
of  their  attraction,  all  the  same.  Indeed,  in  her  vicari 
ous  love-making  there  is  a  curious,  teasing  insistence 
that  suggests  far  more  than  a  mere  mercenary  preoccu 
pation  ;  and  in  the  serious  novels,  into  which  she  put  her 
best  artistic  effort,  the  almost  feverish  eroticism  would 
seem  to  indicate,  as  with  other  unmarried  writers,  a 
constant  presence  of  the  woman  in  her  extreme  fem 
ininity,  however  obscure  and  unacknowledged. 

As  Miss  Alcott  had  all  the  sensitiveness,  the  whims 
and  shifts  of  mood,  the  eccentric  possibilities,  of  the 
born  artist,  so  she  was  by  no  means  without  the  artist's 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  183 

instinct  of  ambition  and  desire  for  fame.  From  child 
hood  she  wanted  to  do  something  that  would  make  her 
great  and  distinguished  and  a  figure  in  the  mouths  and 
hearts  of  men.  She  wanted  to  act;  wrote  plays  and  pro 
duced  them  in  the  parlor,  as  Jo  did;  had  visions  of  oper 
atic  and  theatrical  triumphs.  She  envied  the  successes 
of  great  authors.  When  she  read  "Jane  Eyre,"  she 
writes :  "  I  can't  be  a  C.  B.,  but  I  may  do  a  little  something 
yet."47  Her  young  friends  tease  her  about  being  an 
authoress.  She  assures  them  that  she  will  be,  though 
she  adds  modestly  to  herself,  "  Will  if  I  can,  but  some 
thing  else  may  be  better  for  me." 48  Not  only  has  she 
the  theory  of  authorship,  but  all  her  emotions  and  desires 
and  fancies  naturally  seek  literary  expression.  When 
she  was  a  child,  she  wrote  verses  for  the  pure  delight  of 
it,  —  not  great  verses  certainly,  but  they  pleased  and  re 
lieved  her.  When  she  stood  at  the  other  extreme  of  life, 
she  wrote  verses  still.  "  Father  and  I  cannot  sleep,  but 
he  and  I  make  verses  as  we  did  when  Marmee  died." 49 
When  she  was  weary  or  overwrought,  she  turned  to 
her  pen  for  distraction,  if  not  for  comfort.  "Began 
a  book  called  '  Genius.'  Shall  never  finish  it,  I  dare  say, 
but  must  keep  a  vent  for  my  fancies  to  escape  at."50 

She  viewed  life  from  the  artist's  angle  also,  took  it 
impersonally  in  its  larger  relations  as  well  as  in  its  imme- 


184    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

diate  appeal  to  her.  She  notes  early  in  her  Journal  that 
she  began  to  see  the  strong  contrasts  and  the  fun  and 
follies  in  every-day  life.  She  always  saw  them  and  al 
ways  had  the  strong  impulse  to  turn  them  into  litera 
ture.  And  her  methods  were  not  mechanical,  did  not 
savor  of  the  shop  or  the  workbench.  In  the  interesting 
account  of  them  which  she  jotted  down  in  later  years 
the  marked  flavor  of  inspiration  and  artistic  instinct  is 
apparent.  She  never  had  a  study,  she  says,  writes  with 
any  pen  or  paper  that  come  to  hand,  always  has  a  head 
full  of  plots  and  a  heart  full  of  passions,  works  them 
over  at  odd  moments  and  writes  them  down  from  mem 
ory,  as  fancy  and  convenience  dictate.  Quiet  she  wants, 
an3  solitude,  if  possible,  and  a  stimulating  environment, 
or  at  least  not  a  deadening  one.  "  Very  few  stories  writ 
ten  in  Concord;  no  inspiration  in  that  dull  place.  Go  to 
Boston,  hire  a  quiet  room  and  shut  myself  in  it."51 

If  the  creative  impulse  possesses  her,  it  possesses  her 
wholly.  When  she  can  work,  she  can't  wait,  she  says. 
Sleep  is  of  no  consequence,  food  is  of  no  consequence. 
She  can't  work  slowly.  The  ideas  boil  and  bubble  and 
must  find  their  vent.  When  she  was  writing  her  favorite 
"  Moods,"  there  was  no  rest  for  her.  She  was  tied  to  her 
desk  day  after  day.  Her  family  alternately  praised  and 
worried.  Her  mother  administered  tea  and  her  father 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  185 

red  apples.  "  All  sorts  of  fun  was  going  on ;  but  I  did  n't 
care  if  the  world  returned  to  chaos  if  I  and  my  inkstand 
only  'lit'  in  the  same  place."52  Then,  after  the  excite 
ment  of  labor  came  the  excitement  of  glory.  Men  and 
women,  well  known  in  her  world  at  any  rate,  crowded 
to  praise  and  compliment.  "  I  liked  it,  but  think  a  small 
dose  quite  as  much  as  is  good  for  me;  for  after  sitting 
in  a  corner  and  grubbing  a  la  Cinderella,  it  rather  turns 
one's  head  to  be  taken  out  and  be  treated  like  a  princess 
all  of  a  sudden."53 

Nor  did  she  lack  the  discouragement  and  depression 
inseparable  from  all  artistic  effort.  There  were  the  end 
less  external  difficulties  which  every  artist  knows  and 
none  but  artists  much  sympathize  with:  the  frets,  the 
home  cares,  always  so  much  accentuated  in  the  case  of  a 
woman,  even  when  she  is  unmarried,  the  perpetual,  the 
trivial,  and  more  harassing  because  trivial,  interrup 
tions.  Idle  neighbors  chat  of  idle  doings;  hours  slip 
away ;  when  at  last  the  free  hour  and  the  quiet  spot  are 
found,  weary  nerves  have  no  longer  any  inspiration  left 
in  them.  Of  one  of  her  books  that  she  loved  she  says 
pathetically :  "  Not  what  it  should  be,  —  too  many  inter 
ruptions.  Should  like  to  do  one  book  in  peace,  and  see 
if  it  wouldn't  be  good." 54  On  another  occasion  she  gets 
ready  for  a  fit  of  work.  Then  John  Brown's  daughters 


i86    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

come  to  board ;  arrangements  have  to  be  made  for  them 
and  their  comfort  provided  for.  Louisa  cries  out  her 
sorrow  on  the  fat  ragbag  in  the  garret  and  sets  to  work 
at  housekeeping.  "  I  think  disappointment  must  be  good 
for  me,  I  get  so  much  of  it;  and  the  constant  thumping 
Fate  gives  me  may  be  a  mellowing  process ;  so  I  shall  be 
a  ripe  and  sweet  old  pippin  before  I  die." 55 

Yet  the  books  get  done  somehow.  Only,  when  they 
are  done,  the  troubles  seem  just  begun  rather  than 
ended.  Publishers  are  refractory,  such  being  their  na 
ture,  like  that  of  other  human  beings.  Stories  are  ac 
cepted  and  all  seems  triumphant.  But  they  do  not  come 
out;  instead,  are  held  back  by  long  and  quite  needless 
delays,  till  it  is  evident  that  the  world  is  criminally  in 
different  to  works  that  are  bound  to  be  immortal.  "  All 
very  aggravating  to  a  young  woman  with  one  dollar,  no 
bonnet,  half  a  gown,  and  a  discontented  mind."56 

Perhaps  worst  of  all,  when  you  do  achieve  success  and 
are  read  and  admired,  there  comes  the  deadly  doubt 
about  the  value  of  your  own  work;  for,  however  much 
they  may  resent  the  faultfinding  of  others,  authors  who 
really  count  are  their  own  severest  critics ;  and  of  all  the 
sorrows  of  the  literary  life  none  is  keener  than  the  feel 
ing  that  what  you  have  done  is  far  enough  from  what 
you  would  have  liked  to  do.  In  this  point,  also,  Miss 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  187 

Alcott  was  an  author,  and  she  often  indicates  what  she 
expressed  freely  in  regard  to  some  of  her  minor  works. 
"  They  were  not  good,  and  though  they  sold  the  paper 
I  was  heartily  ashamed  of  them  .  .  .  I  'm  glad  of  the 
lesson,  and  hope  it  will  do  me  good."57 

So  we  may  safely  conclude  that  it  was  not  only  hard 
necessity  that  drove  her  to  write,  but  that  if  she  had 
grown  up  in  all  comfort  and  with  abundant  means  always 
at  her  command,  she  would  still  have  felt  the  teasing  im 
pulses  of  the  literary  instinct,  still  have  bound  herself  to 
the  staid  drudgery  of  ink  and  paper  and  been  slave  to  the 
high  hopes  and  deep  despairs  which  mean  life  —  and 
death  —  to  those  who  are  born  with  the  curious  long 
ing  to  create  things  beautiful. 


Ill 

As  it  was,  however,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  solid 
need  of  earning  money  was  the  chief  and  enduring  spur 
of  her  literary  effort.  She  was  not  essentially  and  first  of 
all  a  preacher,  as  was  Mrs.  Stowe.  Some  may  disagree 
about  this,  considering  the  extreme  moralizing  of  many, 
not  to  say  all,  of  her  stories.  The  moralizing  is  evident 
and  undeniable.  She  not  only  took  pains  to  avoid  what 
might  be,  in  her  opinion,  distinctly  injurious,  though 


1 88    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

there  are  critics  who  hold  that  in  this  she  was  far  from 
successful ;  but  she  rarely  misses  an  opportunity  for  di 
rect  preaching.  Indeed,  in  some  of  her  inferior  writings 
the  preaching  is  so  overdone  that  it  surfeits  even  her  most 
ardent  admirers.  She  is  determined  to  preach,  will  not 
be  hindered  from  preaching;  boys  and  girls  must  learn 
something  good,  if  they  are  to  linger  with  her.  Yet  the 
fury  of  the  effort  implies  something  artificial  about  it. 
Her  preaching  is  an  acquired  habit  and  discipline,  not 
an  inherited,  divine  impulse,  like  Mrs.  Stowe's.  When 
you  look  carefully  into  Louisa's  religion,  you  appre 
ciate  at  once  what  I  mean.  It  was  a  sturdy,  working 
religion,  solid,  substantial,  full  of  good  deeds  and  kind 
ness.  Her  own  hard  experience  had  made  her  eminently 
ready  to  help  others.  When  she  gets  money,  she  gives 
it,  and  she  gives  sympathy  always.  "  I  like  to  help  the 
class  of  '  silent  poor '  to  which  we  belonged  for  so  many 
years/'58  But  her  own  hard  experience  had  been  too 
closely  connected  with  abstract  religion  and  concrete 
philosophers  for  her  to  cherish  much  personal  affec 
tion  for  abstract  religion  and  philosophy.  In  her 
thoughtful  childhood  she  did  indeed  touch  God  under 
the  whisper  of  the  great  pines:  "It  seemed  as  if  I 
felt  God  as  I  never  did  before,  and  I  prayed  in  my 
heart  that  I  might  keep  that  happy  sense  of  near- 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  189 

ness  all  my  life."59  But  she  was  too  honest  to  pay 
herself  with  words,  and  to  her,  as  to  so  many  of  her 
contemporaries,  religious  hope  remained  simply  a  glim 
mering  star  to  distract  thought  from  dark  gulfs  that  had 
no  hope  in  them  at  all.  "  Life  always  was  a  puzzle  to 
me,  and  gets  more  mysterious  as  I  go  on.  I  shall  find  it 
out  by  and  by  and  see  that  it 's  all  right,  if  I  can  only 
keep  brave  and  patient  to  the  end." 60 

Meantime  she  must  earn  money.  She  set  out  with 
that  motive  in  her  youth  and  it  abode  with  her  till  her 
death.  Do  not  take  this  in  any  sordid  sense.  She  was  as 
far  as  possible  from  being  a  miser  or  a  squanderer.  She 
found  no  pleasure  in  the  long  accumulation  of  a  fortune, 
none  in  the  mad  spending  of  it.  But  the  terrible  lack  of 
dollars  in  her  childhood  had  taught  her  their  value.  All 
her  life  she  was  in  need  of  moderate  ease  herself  and 
those  she  loved  needed  it  far  more.  Therefore  she  must 
and  she  would  and  she  did  earn  money.  How  she  earned 
it  was  of  less  importance,  and  she  was  perfectly  ready 
to  try  any  of  the  few  forms  of  earning  then  accessible 
to  women.  "  Tried  for  teaching,  sewing,  or  any  honest 
work.  Won't  go  home  to  sit  idle  while  I  have  a  head  and 
pair  of  hands."61  She  takes  a  place  as  governess  and 
goes  into  ecstasy  over  her  small  wages :  "  Every  one  of 
those  dollars  cried  aloud, '  What,  ho !  Come  hither,  and 


190    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

be  happy ! ' " 62  She  even  goes  out  as  a  simple  servant, 
with  disastrous  results,  as  fully  related  by  herself.  Teach 
ing  comes  into  the  list,  of  course.  But  she  was  never 
successful  at  it,  and  when  Fields,  with  all  a  publisher's 
hearty  kindness,  says  to  her,  "Stick  to  your  teaching; 
you  can't  write,"  she  murmurs,  under  her  breath, 
"I  won't  teach;  and  I  can  write,  and  I '11  prove  it."63 

For,  of  all  the  forms  of  drudgery  for  money,  she 
found  literature  the  most  acceptable  and  agreeable.  "  I 
can't  do  much  with  my  hands ;  so  I  will  make  a  battering- 
ram  of  my  head  and  make  a  way  through  this  rough- 
and-tumble  world."64  She  did  it;  but  do  not  imagine 
that  the  way  was  easy,  that  the  dollars  rolled  into  her 
lap,  or  that  she  could  escape  many  hard  knocks  and  stag 
gering  buffets.  Late  in  her  life  a  young  man  asked  her 
if  she  would  advise  him  to  devote  himself  to  authorship. 
"  Not  if  you  can  do  anything  else,  even  dig  ditches," 65 
was  the  bitter  answer.  For  years  she  found  the  upward 
road  a  piece  of  long  and  tedious  traveling.  Hours  had 
to  be  snatched  where  possible,  or  impossible,  necessary 
tasks  had  to  be  slighted,  health  had  to  be  risked  and 
wasted,  all  to  write  stories  which  she  knew  to  be  worth 
less,  but  which  she  hoped  would  sell.  They  did  sell 
after  a  fashion,  brought  her  five  dollars  here,  ten  dollars 
there,  enough  to  buy  a  pair  of  shoes  or  stop  a  gaping 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  191 

creditor's  mouth  for  a  moment.  But  what  vast  labor 
was  expended  for  petty  results  or  none,  what  vaster 
hopes  were  daily  thrown  down,  only  to  be  built  up  again 
with  inexhaustible  endurance  and  energy ! 

Even  when  success  came  and  the  five  dollars  were 
transformed  into  fifty  and  five  hundred,  there  was  strug 
gle  still,  perhaps  more  wearing  than  at  first.  Engage 
ments  had  to  be  met  and  publishers  satisfied,  no  matter 
how  irksome  the  effort.  "  I  wrote  it  with  left  hand  in  a 
sling,  one  foot  up,  head  aching,  and  no  voice/'66  she 
says  of  one  story.  Though  money  was  abundant,  it  was 
never  abundant  enough:  "The  family  seem  so  panic- 
stricken  and  helpless  when  I  break  down,  that  I  try  to 
keep  the  mill  going."67  To  be  sure,  there  was  glory. 
When  it  began  to  come,  she  appreciated  it  keenly. 
"  Success  has  gone  to  my  head,  and  I  wander  a  little. 
Twenty-seven  years  old,  and  very  happy."  It  was 
pleasant  to  be  widely  praised  and  admired,  pleasant  to 
have  compliments  from  great  men  and  brilliant  women, 
pleasantest  of  all,  perhaps,  to  feel  that  children  loved 
your  books  and  cried  over  them  and  loved  you.  Yet  she 
seems  to  have  felt  the  annoyances  of  glory  more  than 
most  authors  and  to  have  savored  its  sweets  less.  Per 
haps  this  was  because  she  was  early  worn  out  with  over 
work  and  over-anxiety.  "When  I  had  the  youth  I 


I92     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

had  no  money ;  now  I  have  the  money  I  have  no  time  ; 
and  when  I  get  the  time,  if  I  ever  do,  I  shall  have  no 
health  to  enjoy  life/'69  Fame  bothered  her.  She  re 
sented  the  intrusions  of  reporters,  even  the  kindly  curi 
osity  of  adoring  readers.  What  right  had  they  to  pester 
a  quiet  woman  earning  her  living  with  desperate  effort 
in  her  own  way?  For  the  earning,  after  all,  was  the  side 
that  appealed  to  her,  the  earning  with  all  it  meant.  "  The 
cream  of  the  joke  is,  that  we  made  our  own  money  our 
selves,  and  no  one  gave  us  a  blessed  penny.  That  does 
soothe  my  rumpled  soul  so  much  that  the  glory  is  not 
worth  thinking  of."  70 

Also,  to  be  sure,  she  had  always  the  feeling  that  she 
was  not  doing  the  best  she  could  and  that  the  money  came 
most  freely  for  the  things  she  was  not  most  proud  of. 
In  her  early  days  she  wrote  and  sold  sensational  stories 
of  a  rather  cheap  order.  Certain  features  of  these 
pleased  her.  She  confesses  quite  frankly  that  she  had 
"a  taste  for  ghastliness " 71  and  that  she  was  "fond  of 
the  night  side  of  nature/' 72  But  she  longed  to  do  some 
thing  else,  and  she  tried  to,  —  in  "  Moods  "  and  "  A  Mod 
ern  Mephistopheles,"  —  perhaps  not  very  well,  at  any 
rate  not  very  successfully.  Few  get  the  glory  they  want, 
but  there  is  probably  a  peculiar  bitterness  in  getting  the 
glory  you  don't  want. 


LOUISA  MAY  ALCOTT  193 

Then  she  hit  on  a  line  of  work  which,  if  not 
great  or  original,  was  sane  and  genuine.  She  put  her 
own  life,  her  own  heart  into  her  books,  and  they  were 
read  with  delight  because  her  heart  was  like  the  hearts 
of  all  of  us.  As  a  child,  she  wanted  to  sell  her  hair  to 
support  her  family.  When  she  was  older,  she  supported 
them  by  selling  her  flesh  and  blood,  and  theirs,  but  al 
ways  with  a  fine  and  dignified  reserve  as  well  as  a  charm 
ing  frankness.  Every  creative  author  builds  his  books 
out  of  his  own  experience.  They  would  be  worthless 
otherwise.  But  few  have  drawn  upon  the  fund  more 
extensively  and  constantly  than  Miss  Alcott.  And  she 
was  wise  to  do  it,  and  when  she  ceased  to  do  it,  she  failed. 
She  could  allege  the  great  authority  of  Goethe  for  her 
practice:  " Goethe  puts  his  joys  and  sorrows  into  poems; 
I  turn  my  adventures  into  bread  and  butter."73  She 
could  also  have  alleged  the  shrewdness  and  vast  human 
experience  of  Voltaire,  who  said :  "  Whoever  has,  as  you 
have,  imagination  and  common-sense,  can  find  in  him 
self,  without  other  aid,  the  complete  knowledge  of  human 
nature."74 

So  she  coined  her  soul  to  pad  her  purse  and,  incident 
ally,  to  give  solace  to  many.  The  worshipers  of  art  for 
art's  sake  may  sneer  at  her,  but  she  remains  in  excellent 
company.  Scott,  Dumas,  Trollope,  to  name  no  others,  col- 


194    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

lected  cash,  as  well  as  glory,  with  broad  and  easy  negli 
gence.  And  the  point  is  that,  while  doing  so,  they  estab 
lished  themselves  securely  among  the  benefactors  of 
mankind.  The  great  thinkers,  the  great  poets,  the  great 
statesmen,  the  great  religious  teachers  sway  us  upward 
for  our  goocf.  But  they  often  lead  us  astray  and  they 
always  harass  us  in  the  process.  I  do  not  know  that  they 
deserve  much  more  of  our  gratitude  than  those  who 
make  our  souls  forget  by  telling  charming  stories.  Per 
haps  "  Little  Women  "  does  not  belong  in  quite  the  same 
order  as  "  Rob  Roy,"  or  "  Les  Trois  Mousquetaires,"  or 
even  "  Phineas  Finn/'  But  it  is  not  an  unenviable  fate 
to  have  gained  an  honest  independence  by  giving  profit 
and  delight  to  millions.  Miss  Alcott  did  it — and 
Shakespeare. 


VII 
FRANCES  ELIZABETH   WILLARD 


CHRONOLOGY 

Frances  Elizabeth  Willard 

Born  in  Church ville,  New  York,  September  28,  1839. 

Removed  to  Oberlin,  Ohio,  1841. 

Removed  to  Wisconsin,  1846. 

At  Milwaukee  Female  College,  1857. 

At  Northwestern  Female  College,  1858,  1859. 

Taught  till  1874. 

Entered  Temperance  Work,  1874. 

President  National  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  1879, 

President  World's  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  1888. 

Died  February  17,  1898. 


FRANCES  WILLARD 


VII 

FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD 
I 

SHE  had  the  great  West  behind  her;  its  sky  and  its 
distances,  its  fresh  vigor  and  its  unexampled  joy.  Her 
father  carried  his  New  England  traditions  and  his  in 
fant  children  from  New  York  in  the  early  forties, — 
first  to  Ohio,  then  to  Wisconsin,  —  and- Frances  and 
her  brother  and  sister  were  fed  full  on  corn,  pork,  farm 
ing,  and  religion.  She  herself  cites  with  entire  ap 
proval  her  mother's  analysis  of  the  child's  fortunate 
heredity:  "The  Thompson  generosity,  the  Willard  deli 
cacy,  the  Hill  purpose  and  steadfastness,  the  French 
element  coming  from  the  Lewis  family,  make  up  an 
unique  human  amalgam." *  Whatever  her  heredity,  she 
had  a  sane  and  healthy  childhood.  She  lived  with  the  ani 
mals,  and  raced  and  romped  and  rioted;  she  lived  with 
the  Bible  and  with  high  ideals  and  direct  and  pointed 
English,  and  she  contracted  an  abhorrence  of  whiskey 
which  supplied  her  for  life  with  a  more  eager  stimulant 
than  whiskey  could  possibly  have  furnished. 

As  a  consequence  of  her  breeding  and  surroundings, 


198    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

she  had  excellent  health.  Her  mother  said  that  in 
childhood  Frances  was  the  most  delicate  of  all  her  chil 
dren  and  that  she  had  an  organism  exceptionally  sus 
ceptible  to  physical  pain.2  She  herself  enlarges  often 
upon  the  exquisite  fineness  of  her  sensibility.3  But  fresh 
air,  exercise,  and  ample  sleep,  maintained  under  even 
the  greatest  pressure  of  business,  gave  her  a  sound  and 
vigorous  body,  and  no  doubt  as  much  as  anything  else 
enabled  her  to  say,  near  the  very  end  of  her  career: 
"The  chief  wonder  of  my  life  is  that  I  dare  to  have 
so  good  a  time,  both  physically,  mentally,  and  reli 
giously."4  To  have  so  good  a  time,  remember  it. 

With  the  well-nourished  body  and  the  firm,  sturdy 
muscles  went  an  unfailing  energy  of  purpose  and  of 
execution.  She  was  no  listless  performer  of  household 
duty,  no  tame  dishwasher  or  bedmaker,  doing  routine 
tasks  from  day  to  day,  without  a  thought  beyond  them. 
Her  mother  says :  "  I  wonder  sometimes  that  I  had  the 
wit  to  let  her  do  what  she  preferred  instead  of  obliging 
her  to  take  up  housework  as  did  all  the  other  girls  of 
our  acquaintance."5  Wit  or  not,  it  was  a  course  ad 
mirably  suited  to  Frances.  She  dodged  the  dishpan, 
milked  the  cows  instead,  rode  the  horses,  rode  the  cows, 
too,  if  the  whim  seized  her,  held  the  plough  at  need, 
and  in  the  intervals  roved  the  fields  and  pastures,  and 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       199 

let  her  soul  rove  even  more  widely  than  her  feet  did. 
Routine  of  all  sorts  she  hated  always,  and  shunned  it 
when  she  could.  "  To  be  tied  to  a  bell  rope,"  she  says, 
was  "an  asphyxiating  process  from  which  I  vainly 
sought  escape,  changing  the  spot  only  to  keep  the 
pain."6 

Everything  in  her  case,  you  see,  favored  the  building 
up  of  a  strong  individuality,  an  ardent,  independent  will, 
and  such  was  the  result.  She  knew  her  own  way  and 
sought  it  with  tremendous  persistence  and  astonishing 
success.  She  had  a  spice  of  temper,  which  she  well 
recognized  and  fought  and  got  the  better  of,  but  with 
immense  struggle.  When  she  was  a  schoolgirl,  she  had 
an  amiable  playmate  whose  amiability  irritated  her. 
She  "just  stepped  on  Effie's  toes  at  recess  to  see  if  she 
wouldn't  frown,  and  sure  enough  she  didn't."7  All 
through  life  she  felt  an  inclination  to  step  on  such 
amiable  toes.  Her  willfulness  showed  in  the  inclination 
and  her  will  in  keeping  it  under. 

Souls  of  this  positive,  individual  temper  are  not  al 
ways  successful  in  their  relations  with  others,  do  not 
always  care  to  mingle  with  others  or  to  frame  their 
lives  in  conjunction  with  their  fellow  men  and  women. 
Miss  Willard's  account  of  herself  shows  strong  symp 
toms  of  this  self -withdrawing  disposition.  She  speaks 


200    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

of  her  painful  shyness  in  youth,  of  her  difficulties  in 
meeting  people  and  in  adapting  herself  to  them.  She 
makes  an  interesting  admission,  also,  which  places  her 
sharply  in  one  of  the  two  great  classes  into  which  social 
humanity  is  divided:  "I  have  an  unconquerable  aver 
sion  to  intercourse  with  my  superiors  in  position,  age, 
or  education."8  Such  an  aversion,  like  its  opposite,  is 
the  key  to  many  lives  and  furnishes  a  great  help  for 
understanding  Miss  Willard's. 

On  the  other  hand,  she  had  many  striking  social  quali 
ties.  Her  rush  and  furious  abundance  of  spirits,  her 
immense  mental  activity,  naturally  sought  utterance 
with  those  who  would  understand  her  and  appreciate 
her  ardor.  She  had  varied'  and  sparkling  wit,  could  tell 
excellent  stories  and  did,  —  stories  that  were  remem 
bered  and  repeated  after  her.  She  shone  in  conversa 
tion, —  real  conversation  apparently,  that  is,  in  which 
others  did  their  part  as  well  as  she.  Her  comment 
upon  Emerson's  well-known  saying,  "we  descend  to 
meet,"  is  curious.  She  thinks  that  Emerson  lived  too 
early  to  know  what  true  meeting  was,  and  that  the  in 
tercourse  of  advanced,  emancipated  women  almost  real 
izes  the  privileges  of  celestial  society.  9  Yet  in  a  milder 
moment  she  herself  admits  that  wholly  successful  con 
versation  is  possible  only  with  the  very  limited  number 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       201 

who  are  akin  to  us.  If  she  who  had  talked  with  thou 
sands  and  thousands  could  write  the  following  words, 
surely  there  is  some  excuse  for  those  who  find  life  a 
spiritual  solitude.  "I  do  not  believe  that  six  persons 
have  ever  heard  me  talk,  and  not  more  than  three  ever 
in  private  converse  heard  my  vox  humana,  simply  be 
cause  they  were  not  skilled  musicians.  .  .  .  For  myself 
I  know  so  little  of  [perfect  response]  that  only  as  a 
foretaste  of  heaven's  companionships  do  I  think  of  such 
beatitude  at  all." 10 

However  unsatisfactory  Miss  Willard  may  have 
found  general  society,  there  is  no  question  as  to  her 
deep  tenderness  for  her  intimate  friends  and  fellow 
workers.  In  her  "Autobiography"  she  gives  a  curious 
analysis  of  the  passionate  affections  of  her  girlhood. 
They  were  marked  by  all  the  sensitiveness,  all  the  con 
fidence,  all  the  jealousy  of  woman's  love  for  man.  In 
the  letters  written  in  later  years  to  one  of  her  co-laborers 
I  find  much  the  same  tone  of  devoted  personal  attach 
ment  :  "  I  would  I  could  fondly  believe  myself  one  tithe 
as  much  a  woman  after  your  own  heart,  as  you  are 
after  mine.  I  don't  mean  to  let  you  go  your  gait  away 
from  my  ken  and  kindly  regards  '  never  no  more/ ' 

Above  all,  from  youth  to  age,  Miss  Willard  felt  this 
yearning,  clinging  affection  for  the  members  of  her  own 


202    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

family.  Her  father  and  brother  were  very  dear  to  her. 
Her  sister,  Mary,  whose  brief  life  she  commemorated 
in  the  little  volume  entitled,  "Nineteen  Beautiful 
Years/'  was  even  dearer.  When  she  first  parted  from 
them,  the  wrench  shook  her  whole  being,  and  she  de 
scribes  the  pain  of  it  in  delightfully  characteristic  lan 
guage:  "I  have  cried  like  a  child,  no,  like  a  strong 
man,  rather,  until  I  quivered  with  trying  to  suppress 
the  sobs  that  would  make  themselves  audible."12  With 
her  mother  the  relation  was  closest  of  all.  Mrs.  Willard 
reared  her  daughter  to  be  a  notable  woman,  made  her 
worthy  to  be  so,  and  lived  to  see  her  so,  with  infinite 
satisfaction.  And  Frances's  admiration  and  adoration 
for  her  mother  continued  and  increased  through  life. 
"  My  nature  is  so  woven  into  hers  that  I  almost  think  it 
would  be  death  for  me  to  have  the  bond  severed  and 
one  so  much  myself  gone  over  the  river."13 

And  how  about  men?  It  is  evident  enough  that  such 
a  vivid,  passionate  nature  had  treasures  of  affection  to 
bestow,  if  circumstances  had  favored  it.  She  had  lovers, 
too.  At  least  she  says  so,  and  I  believe  her.  In  the 
bitter,  slightly  over-bitter,  analysis  which  she  makes 
of  herself,  she  says  that  she  is  "not  beautiful,  pretty, 
or  even  good-looking."14  Others  thought  differently, 
and  one  enthusiast  concluded  from  her  appearance  in 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       203 

age  that  in  youth  she  "  must  have  possessed  a  rare  and 
exquisite  beauty."15  However  this  may  be,  I  fancy  she 
was  liked  even  more  for  her  words  and  spirit  than  for 
her  looks.  She  implies  that  possibly,  if  the  right  man 
had  wooed  her,  she  might  have  been  won.  The  right 
man  never  did.  Meantime,  her  comments  upon  love 
and  her  own  capacity  for  love  and  her  rigid  resistance 
to  love  are  delicious.  I  wish  I  could  quote  the  whole 
of  them.  "I  have  never  been  in  love,  I  have  never 
shed  a  tear  or  dreamed  a  dream,  or  sighed,  or  had  a 
sleepless  hour  for  love.  ...  I  was  too  cautious,  loved 
my  own  peace  too  well,  valued  myself  too  highly,  re 
membered  too  frequently  that  I  was  made  for  something 
far  more  worthy  than  to  spend  a  disconsolate  life,  wast 
ing  my  heart,  the  richest  gift  I  could  bestow,  upon  a 
man  who  did  not  care  for  it."16  This  when  she  was 
but  little  over  twenty.  Many  years  later  she  adds :  "  Of 
the  real  romance  of  my  life,  unguessed  save  by  a  trio 
of  close  friends,  these  pages  may  not  tell." 17  Oh,  but 
I  wish  they  might  have  told!  What  would  she  have 
said  of  the  love  she  had,  when  she  writes  so  ardently 
of  the  love  she  had  not ! 

But  love  in  her  career  was  a  mere  phantom,  a  drift 
ing  rose-cloud.  She  had  other  things  to  think  of  that 
were,  or  seemed  to  her,  more  important.  And  what 


204    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

apparatus  and  equipment  had  she  for  thinking  of  them? 
She  had  a  good  background  of  intelligence  and  thought 
behind  her,  came  of  New  England  stock  that  was  ac 
customed  to  deal  with  the  abstract  problems  of  life,  as 
well  as  with  the  practical.  She  had  a  substantial  and 
fairly  varied  education.  She  read  very  widely,  even 
in  her  younger  days.  When  she  was  eighteen,  she 
placidly  informed  her  father  that,  being  of  age,  she  was 
going  to  read  novels,  though  he  disapproved  of  them.18 
She  did.  The  list  of  books  on  her  desk  when  she  was 
twenty  is  portentous :  Watts  "  On  the  Mind,"  Kames's 
"Elements  of  Criticism/'  Niebuhr's  "Life  and  Let 
ters,"  19  etc.  She  was  brought  up  on  Lord  Chesterfield's 
letters  to  his  son  and  tried  to  put  his  precepts  into 
practice.  She  digested  the  disillusioned  maxims  of 
Chamfort  and  quotes  with  approval  one  of  the  most 
disillusioned  of  them :  "  In  great  matters  men  show  them 
selves  as  they  wish  to  be  seen ;  in  small  matters  as  they 
are."20 

And  she  had  the  natural  thinking  power,  without 
which  books,  even  disillusioned,  obscure  the  spirit's 
progress  rather  than  help  it.  She  made  up  her  mind 
about  things  independently,  made  it  up  quickly,  made 
it  up  firmly,  though  she  always  recognized  the  possibil 
ity  of  change  with  a  changing  point  of  view.  "This 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       205 

is  my  opinion  now;  will  it  change?  It  may  seem  wrong 
to  others.  It  is  my  way  of  thinking,  and  I  have  a  right 
to  it.  That  right  I  will  maintain."21  She  analyzed 
everything  fearlessly,  —  analyzed  her  own  heart,  ana 
lyzed  nature  and  the  world,  analyzed  the  men  and 
women  about  her.  Her  analysis  may  not  always  have 
been  perfect  or  profound.  It  was  at  least  sincere,  and, 
on  the  whole,  free  from  prejudice.  She  analyzed  life, 
and  especially,  with  curious  force  and  bareness,  she 
analyzed  death.  How  simple  and  direct  is  the  account 
in  her  Journal  of  her  feelings  at  the  bedside  of  her 
dying  sister:  "I  leaned  on  the  railing  at  the  foot  of 
the  bed  and  looked  at  my  sister —  my  sister  Mary  — 
and  knew  that  she  was  dead,  knew  that  she  was  alive! 
Everything  was  far  off;  I  was  benumbed  and  am  but 
waking  to  the  tingling  agony." 22  How  vivid  and  poign 
ant  are  the  reflections  suggested  by  the  same  scene 
in  regard  to  herself:  "Then,  too,  I  am  coming  right 
straight  on  to  the  same  doom :  I,  who  sit  here  this  bright 
morning,  with  carefully  made  toilet,  attentive  eyes,  ears 
open  to  every  sound,  I,  with  my  thousand  thoughts,  my 
steady-beating  heart,  shall  lie  there  so  still,  so  cold,  and 
for  so  long." 23 

If  she  applied  such  analysis  to  everything,  and  from 
her  early  childhood,  how  was  it  with  religion,  —  when 


206    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

did  it  take  hold  of  her,  how  fully,  how  genuinely,  how 
deeply?  Her  sensibility  was  keen  enough  to  be  much 
stirred  by  its  emotional  side.  She  was  sensitive  to 
everything.  Art  indeed  did  not  come  within  her  youth 
ful  range,  and  in  later  life  she  was  too  busy  for  it.  But 
music  she  loved  and  felt,  and  music  as  the  expression 
of  religious  feeling  had  an  almost  overpowering  effect 
on  her.  The  sense  of  mystery  was  present  with  her, 
too,  always,  even  in  the  midst  of  common  things:  "I 
have  the  feeling  of  one  who  walks  blindfold  among 
scenes  too  awful  for  his  nerves  to  bear,  in  the  midst 
of  which  we  eat  and  drink,  wash  our  faces  and  com 
plain  that  the  fire  won't  burn  in  the  grate,  or  that  the 
tea-bell  doesn't  ring  in  season."24  But  in  early  days 
her  analytical  temper  reacted  against  religion  as  against 
other  things.  The  letter  of  doubt  and  questioning  which 
she  wrote  to  her  teacher  in  the  midst  of  a  revival,  with 
its  unconscious  reproduction  of  a  wicked  jest  of  Vol 
taire, —  "O  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  save  my  soul,  if 
I  have  a  soul,"25  —  is  a  curious  document.  Neverthe 
less,  she  later  accepted  the  orthodox  faith  in  full  and 
with  complete,  though  always  enlightened,  abandonment. 
Only  religion  to  her  was  action,  —  doing  something  for 
somebody,  not  dreaming  or  theological  speculation. 
Her  creed  was  broad  enough  to  take  in  the  whole  world, 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       207 

but  its  essence  was  practice.  In  other  words,  her  re 
ligion  was  not  a  science,  but  an  art,  the  art  she  meant 
when  one  of  her  friends  complained,  "  How  can  you 
think  it  right  to  give  up  your  interest  in  literature  and 
art?"  and  Miss  Willard  answered,  "What  greater  art 
than  to  try  to  restore  the  image  of  God  to  faces  that 
have  lost  it?"28 

II 

FOR  she  was  above  all,  and  more  than  all,  a  worker  for 
humanity,  and  it  as  such  that  the  study  of  her  character 
becomes  profoundly  interesting.  Let  us  first  consider 
her  work  objectively,  as  it  were,  that  is,  in  its  effect 
upon  others,  and  then  in  its  even  more  interesting  effect 
upon  herself.  From  a  child  she  wanted  to  do  some 
thing  in  the  world,  to  make  men  happier  and  better  and 
fitter  for  this  life  and  for  another.  She  realized  in 
tensely  the  miseries  of  existence,  those  unavoidable  and 
those  that  might  so  easily  be  avoided.  She  heard  the 
cries  of  suffering  that  all  might  hear,  and  her  vivid 
imagination  pictured  the  cries  that  were  heard  of  none. 
"I  wish  my  mission  might  be  to  those  who  make  no 
sign,  yet  suffer  most  intensely  under  their  cold,  impas 
sive  faces."27  All  through  her  youth  she, was  restless, 
eager,  longing,  yet  knew  not  what  to  do  more  than  the 


208     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

daily  task  that  came  in  her  way.  Then  the  temperance 
cause  called  her,  with  suffrage  and  the  general  advance 
ment  of  women  as  adjuncts.  She  had  found  what  she 
wanted  and  she  worked  for  it  till  death,  with  every 
power  that  was  in  her.  Thought  of  personal  profit  there 
was  none;  we  may  say  it  with  absolute  certainty.  She 
liked  comfort  and  she  spent  with  freedom,  but  when 
she  declares  "  I  '11  never  lay  up  money  and  I  '11  never  be 
rich," 28  we  know  it  is  true. 

And  what  admirable  powers  she  had  for  the  work! 
Energy?  Her  energy  was  inexhaustible,  and  as  well 
directed  as  it  was  tireless.  She  herself  tells  us  so:  "I 
have  never  been  discouraged,  but  ready  on  the  instant 
with  my  decision,  and  rejoicing  in  nothing  so  much  as 
the  taking  of  initiatives."29  But  we  know  it  without 
her  telling  us.  Labor?  She  can  labor  like  a  machine. 
"  What  it  would  be  to  have  an  idle  hour  I  find  it  hard 
to  fancy."30  She  was  careful  as  to  sleep  and  regular 
as  to  exercise,  but  beyond  that  every  minute  was  util 
ized.  She  traveled  scores  of  thousands  of  miles,  spoke 
often  several  times  a  day,  answered  every  letter,  some 
twenty  thousand  a  year.31  She  wasted  no  strength  in 
worry  or  regret  over  lost  opportunities.  All  the  thought 
she  gave  to  failure  was  to  learn  from  it.  "If  it  be 
ambitious  to  have  no  fear  of  failure  in  any  undertak- 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       209 

ing,  to  that  I  must  plead  guilty.  ...  I  frankly  own 
that  no  position  I  have  ever  attained  gave  me  a  single 
perturbed  or  wakeful  thought,  nor  could  any  that  I 
would  accept." 32 

Other  gifts  besides  effort  are  needed,  however,  to 
ensure  the  triumph  of  a  great  cause.  Whatever  they 
may  be,  Miss  Willard  had  them.  There  is  the  gift  of 
organization,  of  combining  great  bodies  of  men  and 
women  together  for  a  clearly  defined  purpose  and  mak 
ing  them  work  in  unison  till  that  purpose  is  achieved. 
When  she  was  a  child,  she  devised  clubs  and  framed 
elaborate  constitutions  for  them.  When  she  became  a 
woman,  she  did  the  same  work,  efficiently,  rapidly,  and 
with  eminent  success. 

And  there  is  the  gift  of  speech.  So  many  great  ideas 
and  noble  conceptions  are  lost  in  realization  because  the 
initiators  of  them  cannot  put  them  into  adequate  words 
and  fire  the  world ;  just  as  a  fluent  and  admirable  power 
of  the  tongue  is  too  often  given  to  those  who  have 
nothing  behind  it.  Miss  Willard's  tongue  had  assuredly 
something  behind  it;  but  her  power  of  expression  was 
always  ample,  adequate,  and  either  seductive  or  com 
manding,  as  she  wished.  She  herself  knew  well  what 
this  gift  of  eloquence  was,  and  used  it  to  the  full,  and 
cultivated  it.  "  The  spoken  word,  with  a  life  and  char- 


210    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

acter  back  of  it,  the  spoken  word,  sped  home  by  earn 
est  voice,  conversational  tone,  and  punctuating  gesture, 
is  the  final  human  factor  in  the  progress  of  reform." 3S 
Yet  all  testimony  shows  that  her  speeches  were  not  ora 
torical,  not  rhetorical,  not  stuffed  with  formal  figures 
or  pompous  trumpery.  She  went  right  to  the  heart, 
spoke  as  if  her  hearers  were  friends  or  brothers  and 
sisters,  unveiled  her  own  feelings  and  experiences  as 
if  she  were  chatting  at  the  fireside.  "That  was  the 
most  homey  talk  I  ever  heard,"34  said  an  old  farmer, 
after  listening  to  her  with  tears. 

This  quality  of  simplicity  in  her,  public  utterance  was 
immensely  emphasized  by  her  appearance  and  manner. 
There  was  nothing  imposing  or  dominating  about  her; 
rather  an  impression  of  frankness,  gentleness,  sympa 
thetic  and  insinuating  grace.  One  of  her  admirers,  in 
endeavoring  to  describe  her,  says  that  her  features  re 
fuse  "  to  be  impressed  separately  in  your  memory.  Only 
her  smile  and  voice  abide.  She  envelops  you,  perme 
ates  you,  enfolds  you.5'35  The  general  suggestion  of 
grace,  of  graciousness,  recurs  and  is  reiterated  in  all 
attempts  to  reproduce  her  charm. 

For  she  did  charm.  She  charmed  multitudes  from 
the  platform,  made  them,  for  the  time  at  least,  anxious 
to  carry  out  her  ideas  and  do  her  bidding.  She  charmed 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       211  ' 

individuals,  took  them  in  quiet  corners  and  whispered 
to  them  some  spell  of  conviction  which  sent  them  out 
into  the  world  to  try  to  make  life  over,  as  she  would 
have  it.  She  entered  into  other  peoples'  souls,  put  her 
self  in  their  places,  saw  the  world  as  they  saw  it.  There 
was  a  certain  amount  of  theory  about  this  attitude  on 
her  part.  Tact,  adaptation,  adjustment,  were  all  a  mat 
ter  of  principle  with  her.  For  a  child  to  have  been 
brought  up  on  the  "  Letters  of  Lord  Chesterfield  " 36  was 
no  bad  preparation  for  meeting  the  world,  though  one 
is  rather  surprised  to  find  it  on  a  Wisconsin  farm.  She 
preaches  deference,  courtesy,  and  consideration  to 
everybody,  no  matter  what  their  position  in  life.  "  Who 
says  kind  words  to  the  man  that  blacks  his  boots,  to 
the  maid  that  makes  his  bed  and  sweeps  his  hearth?  .  .  . 
Oh,  we  forget  these  things ! " 37  But  with  Miss  Willard 
there  was  more  to  it  than  theory.  She  was  interested 
in  the  lives  of  all  men  and  women,  curious  about  them. 
"I  am  somewhat  of  a  questioner,"38  she  says.  She 
questioned  everybody,  and  so  got  a  peep  into  the  heart. 
But  back  of  the  questioning  were  tenderness  and  sym 
pathy  and  kindness,  the  desire  not  only  to  understand 
but  to  help,  not  only  to  analyze  but  to  make  over.  And 
precisely  in  this  combination  of  understanding  with  love 
lay  her  mighty  power  over  men,  the  infinite  tact  which 


212     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

enabled  her  to  identify  other  wills  with  her  own  and 
so  to  persuade  rather  than  to  command  for  the  achieve 
ment  of  a  great  purpose. 

Even  in  her  early  days  of  teaching  she  formulated 
clearly  the  method  that  later  obtained  such  vast  results : 
"When  you  get  them  all  to  think  alike  and  act  alike 
by  your  command,  you  can  do  with  them  what  you 
will/' 39  But  I  prefer  the  testimony  of  a  simple  heart, 
which  elucidates  the  whole  point:  "A  poor  seamstress 
said  the  other  day :  '  I  go  to  sew  at  Miss  Willard's  some 
times.  I  see  very  little  of  her,  scarcely  hear  her  speak, 
but  why  is  it  I  always  leave  there  saying  to  myself: 
"  I  must  be  a  better  woman,  I  must  indeed."  " 40  So  the 
world  said,  when  Miss  Willard  had  done  with  it. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  attempt  more  than  to  sum 
marize  briefly  what  the  fullness  of  Miss  Willard's  actual 
achievement  was.  It  may  be  that  her  ardent  admirers 
somewhat  exaggerate  it,  as  is  natural.  To  say  that  in 
her  work  for  American  women  "  she  has  done  more  to 
enlarge  our  sympathies>  widen  our  outlook,  and  develop 
our  gifts,  than  any  man,  or  any  other  woman  of  her 
time,"41  is  making  a  broad  claim,  though  perhaps  not 
too  broad.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  certain  that,  as  head  of 
the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  she  dimin 
ished  almost  incalculably  the  sum  of  human  misery,  and 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       213 

who  would  wish  to  have  more  said  of  them  than  that? 
One  who  knew  her  work  well  writes :  "  There  are  count 
less  men  and  women  all  over  the  world  to-day  living  use 
ful  lives,  filling  positions  of  trust  and  responsibility,  who 
owe  to  Frances  Willard  all  that  they  are,  because  her 
word  first  aroused  their  dormant  powers  and  gave  them 
faith  in  themselves/' 42  It  is  a  just  and  noble  eulogy. 

Above  all,  in  this  year  1919,  when,  among  a  multi 
tude  of  surprising  and  far-reaching  events,  few  are 
more  notable  than  the  establishment  of  absolute  prohi 
bition  in  the  United  States  of  America,  the  name  of 
Miss  Willard  deserves  to  be  widely  remembered 
and  commemorated  by  her  countrymen  and  country 
women. 

Ill 

YET  I  confess  that  I  am  even  more  interested  in  what 
prohibition  did  for  Miss  Willard  than  in  what  Miss 
Willard  did  for  prohibition.  Here,  again,  let  us  con 
sider  the  external  influences  first,  and  then  follow  them 
to  their  spiritual  results.  To  begin  with,  take  the  praise, 
the  eulogy,  the  idolatry  almost,  which  were  necessarily 
and  naturally  poured  upon  her  during  the  last  years 
of  her  life.  "  She  has  won  a  love  and  loyalty  that  no 
other  woman,  I  think,  has  ever  before  possessed/'  says 


214    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

her  biographer.43  It  was  immense,  in  any  case.  Huge 
audiences  shouted  and  screamed  with  enthusiasm  over 
her  mere  presence.  Princes  and  potentates  welcomed 
her;  high  functionaries  bowed  down  to  her;  precious 
souls  rescued  from  destruction  hailed  her  as  their 
savior.  Children  were  named  after  her,  so  many  that  her 
secretary  has  to  keep  the  record,  —  over  one  hundred, 
she  says.  No  exuberance  of  praise  seems  excessive, 
and  one  adorer  assures  us  that  "  Frances  Willard  lived, 
literally,  the  Christ-life  on  earth."44  That  "literally" 
is,  I  think,  about  as  far  as  ecstasy  can  go.  The  mind 
that  could  not  be  affected  by  such  treatment  as  this 
would  indeed  have  something  superhuman. 

And  besides  the  influence  of  unlimited  applause,  there 
is  what  I  may  call  the  platform  habit,  the  peculiar  and 
unavoidable  effect  of  appearing  constantly  before  muK 
titudes  of  people  and  exhibiting  one's  personality,  one's 
soul  to  them,  more  or  less  unreservedly.  Of  course 
every  preacher  is  exposed  to  this  to  some  extent  and 
few  preachers  wholly  escape  the  consequences  of  it. 
But  the  ordinary  preacher  is  limited  in  his  audiences 
and  constrained  to  forget  himself  to  some  extent  in  his 
holy  calling.  The  lecturer,  the  political  orator,  and, 
most  of  all,  the  reformer  and  the  revivalist,  are  almost 
always  moulded  by  this  habit  of  public  appearance  in 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       215 

ways  most  curious  to  consider,  and  few  have  been  ex 
posed  to  the  influence  more  overwhelmingly  than  Miss 
Willard. 

The  platform  instinct  was  born  in  her.  At  three  or 
four  years  old  she  was  set  up  on  a  chair  to  recite 
hymns,  and  enjoyed  it.  Of  one  favorite  she  says: 
"Mother  taught  me  how  to  speak  it,  where  to  put  in 
the  volume  of  sound  and  the  soft,  repressed  utterance, 
and  as  for  the  pathos  I  knew  where  to  put  that  in  my 
self."45  She  always  knew.  And  this  instinct  is  not 
one  that  loses  anything  with  the  process  of  time.  As 
years  went  on,  publicity  became  existence  to  her;  she 
thought  in  public,  as  it  were,  and  all  her  inner  life  was 
lived  in  the  presence  of  her  faithful  followers.  Do  not 
take  this  as  in  any  way  contradicting  what  I  have  said 
above  about  her  charm  and  about  her  simplicity.  There 
is  no  incompatibility  here.  It  was  just  because  life  in 
public  was  so  natural  and  easy  to  her,  because  she  faced 
it  without  shrinking  and  without  embarrassment,  that 
she  was  able  to  convey  herself,  all  her  enthusiasms  and 
ideals,  so  directly  to  others.  The  stimulus  of  a  crowd 
roused  her  to  intenser  thought  and  feeling,  just  as  one 
sympathetic  auditor  rouses  others  of  a  different  tem 
perament.  To  her,  vast  numbers  were  just  one  sympa 
thetic  auditor.  Hear  how  shrewd  and  vivid  is  her  own 


216    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

statement  of  this:  "To  me  an  audience  is  like  a  well- 
bred  person,  quiet,  attentive,  sympathetic,  and,  best  of 
all,  not  in  a  position  to  answer  back." 46 

And,  as  she  felt  the  stimulus  of  an  audience  when  it 
was  before  her,  so  she  gradually  came  to  carry  one 
always  in  her  mind,  to  feel  that  she  was  living  before 
the  vast  audience  of  the  world,  and  to  put  into  every 
action  the  consciousness  that  it  must  be  a  lesson  and 
an  example.  An  amiable  hostess  thoughtlessly  invites 
her  to  take  a  glass  of  wine  when  much  fatigued.  "  The 
blood  flushed  in  cheek  and  brow  as  I  said  to  her, 
'Madam,  two  hundred  thousand  women  would  lose 
somewhat  of  their  faith  in  humanity  if  I  should  drink  a 
drop  of  wine/"47  Think  what  it  must  be  to  feel  the 
eyes  of  two  hundred  thousand  women  fixed  upon  you 
from  the  time  you  wake  till  the  time  you  sleep  again. 
This  is  the  way  Miss  Willard  lived. 

Perhaps  the  most  curious  illustration  of  the  sense  of 
exemplariness  is  her  "Autobiography."  Here  is  a  book 
of  seven  hundred  closely  printed  pages,  written  by  her 
self  about  herself,  to  be  given  to  the  world  in  her  own 
lifetime,  and  the  publishers  inform  us  frankly  that  she 
originally  wrote  twelve  hundred  pages  that  had  to  be 
cut  down.  Assuredly  no  one  ever  turned  themselves 
inside  out  more  absolutely  for  the  improvement  of  a 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       217 

Hearkening  world.  And  everywhere  the  necessity  of 
setting  an  example  is  apparent.  This  becomes  evident 
at  once,  when  you  compare  the  simple,  natural  journals 
of  Miss  Willard's  youth  with  the  carefully  prepared 
matter  of  the  later  narrative.  Of  course  nothing  is 
false,  nothing  is  misrepresented.  Yet  the  consciousness 
of  edification,  the  overwhelming  nearness  of  the  lecture 
platform,  are  everywhere  present. 

Now  let  us  analyze  a  little  more  fully  the  effect  of 
this  curious  life  upon  the  woman's  soul.  To  begin  with, 
in  the  immense  work  she  had  undertaken  of  making 
over  the  world  by  the  power  of  speech,  did  she  experi 
ence  alternations  of  hope  and  despair,  enthusiasm  and 
discouragement?  Most  men,  and  especially  most 
women,  one  would  think,  would  have  had  their  hours 
of  being  exalted  with  the  assured  confidence  of  success, 
and  hours  again  when  blank  depression  would  have 
made  it  seem  as  if  they  were  beating  at  a  stone  wall* 
Symptoms  of  such  depression  may  perhaps  be  detected 
in  Miss  Willard's  "Autobiography,"  but  I  have  looked 
for  them  curiously  and  I  have  found  but  few  indeed. 
She  had  splendid  health,  she  had  an  even  temper,  and 
she  had  an  unfailing  faculty  of  hope.  If  she  had  dark 
moments,  she  concealed  them,  perhaps  out. of  considera 
tion  for  the  two  hundred  thousand. 


218    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

I  have  also  enjoyed  probing  the  personal  motives  that 
lay  behind  her  tremendous  and  constant  effort,  for  she 
herself,  in  the  seven  hundred  close  pages,  has  invited 
such  probing  too  earnestly  for  any  one  to  resist  it.  We 
have  already  seen  that  she  aimed  to  help  mankind,  —  set 
out  to  do  a  noble  work  in  the  world,  no  doubt  mainly 
for  the  sake  of  doing  it.  Her  one  sole  aim,  says  her 
enthusiastic  biographer,  "has  been  to  do  the  will  of 
God  as  far  as  she  knew  it." 48  But  to  talk  of  the  sole 
aim  of  any  one  is  perilous.  We  are  not  made  so  neatly 
of  one  piece.  Besides  her  large  philanthropy,  Miss 
Willard  had  a  lot  of  healthy  human  ambition,  just 
plain  common  desire  to  be  admired  and  spoken  well  of 
and  generally  famous.  She  admits  this  herself  very 
freely.  "I  have  been  called  ambitious,  and  so  I  am, 
if  to  have  had  from  childhood  the  sense  of  being  born 
to  a  fate  is  an  element  of  ambition." 49  She  was  keenly 
anxious  to  help  on  such  fate  also.  In  confessing  her 
faults,  she  enumerates :  "  My  chief  besetments  were, 
as  I  thought,  a  speculative  mind,  a  hasty  temper,  a  too 
ready  tongue,  and  the  purpose  to  be  a  celebrated  per 
son."50  She  even  confesses  with  admirable  frankness 
that  it  hurt  her  to  be  excelled  by  others.  "I  have 
odious  little  'inwardnesses'  of  discomfort  when  dis 
tanced."51  - 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       219 

Her  ambition  was  as  wide  as  it  was  intense.  Politics  ? 
Oh,  yes,  certainly  politics.  "  Next  to  a  wish  I  had  to 
be  a  saint  some  day,"  she  tells  an  audience,  "I  really 
would  like  to  be  a  politician."52  Literature?  In  youth 
she  feels  an  overpowering  desire  to  utter  great  thoughts 
and  emotions,  which  she  can  never  quite  put  into  words. 
And  all  her  life  the  same  desire  haunted  her,  so  that 
the  immense  realized  glory  of  her  public  achievement 
was  never  thoroughly  satisfying.  She  would  have  liked 
to  write  something  that  the  future  would  have  read  and 
read  forever.  One  curious  passage  from  her  "Auto 
biography  "  is  worth  quoting  at  length,  as  an  illustration 
of  her  mind  and  temper  and  also  of  her  frankness  of 
self-revelation:  "Just  here  I  will  say,  though  it  is  not 
usual  to  reveal  one's  highest  literary  ambition,  espe 
cially  when  one  has  failed  to  attain  it,  that  I  am  willing 
to  admit  that  mine  has  been  during  the  last  thirty  years 
to  write  for  the  '  Atlantic  Monthly ' !  .  .  .  I  have  writ 
ten  for  'Harper's'  and  had  a  letter  in  the  'Century/ 
but  I  have  never  yet  dared  offer  one  to  the  'Atlantic/ 
Once  I  went  so  far  as  to  send  its  admired  editor, 
Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  a  printed  article  that  I  thought 
tolerably  good,  that  is  for  me,  asking  him  if  he  believed 
I  could  write  anything  the  '  Atlantic '  would  accept.  I 
received  in  reply  a  courteous  note  with  the  enigmatical 


220    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

statement  that  he  was  unable  to  say  from  the  article 
forwarded  whether  I  could  or  not.  The  question  in  my 
mind  is  now  and  ever  shall  be,  'Is  that  a  compliment 
to  the  article  ? '  .  .  .  But  I  give  the  cultured  editor  no 
tice  that  though  I  may  never  be  lifted  to  the  Olympian 
heights  of  his  pages,  I  intend  so  to  live  that  somebody 
who  is,  shall  yet  write  of  me  between  those  magic 
yellow  covers  of  the  Queen  of  Monthlies!"53* 

Though  she  wrote  vastly,  it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed 
that  Miss  Willard's  literary  reputation  is  likely  to  be 
permanent.  It  was  in  the  very  different  field  of  im 
mediate  personal  public  triumph  that  she  won  successes 
huge  enough  to  satisfy  any  ambition  that  could  be  satis 
fied  at  all.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  these  triumphs  that 
they  caress  and  excite  and  stimulate  the  soul  more  than 
any  others  and  the  study  of  their  effect  upon  Miss 
Willard  is  everywhere  extremely  curious. 

In  other  words,  all  through  the  immense  length  of 
her  "  Autobiography  "  I  think  we  may  perceive,  cannot 
deny,  a  growing  self-consciousness,  which  I  would  call 
vanity,  if  the  word  were  not  misleading.  Do  not  sup 
pose  that  this  is  inconsistent  with  power.  Cicero  was 
an  enormous  power  in  the  world  and  was  one  of  the 
vainest  of  men.  It  would  be  folly  to  speak  of  Miss 

*  It  may  be  worth  noting  that  with  the  appearance  of  this  portrait  in  the 
Atlantic  Miss  Willard's  wish  was  for  the  first  time  gratified. 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       221 

Willard  as  vain  in  comparison  with  Cicero.  Nor  is  the 
vanity  inconsistent  with  an  almost  childlike  simplicity. 
On  the  contrary,  it  seems  to  go  with  it  naturally.  It 
did  with  Cicero.  It  did  with  Miss  Willard.  Simplicity 
and  a  singular  charm  are  not  incompatible  with  vanity 
at  all.  Nevertheless,  by  force  of  endeavoring  to  live 
all  one's  life  as  an  example  one  runs  a  little  risk  of 
coming  to  regard  one's  life  as  exemplary,  and  this 
danger  Miss  Willard  did  not  altogether  escape.  This 
it  is  which  leads  her  to  expose  her  soul  in  page  after 
page  with  such  extraordinary  frankness.  She  meant 
to  do  good,  no  doubt  she  might  do  good,  and  did  do 
good;  but  one  cannot  wholly  escape  the  impression  of 
a  naturally  modest  lady  undressing  in  public. 

Of  course  through  all  the  exposure  and  the  stress 
upon  precept  there  is  a  constant  insistence  upon  humil 
ity.  And  no  one  can  question  for  a  moment  that  the 
humility  is  genuine.  When  Miss  Willard  wrote  in  her 
youth:  "I  think  myself  not  good,  not  gifted  in  any 
way.  I  cannot  see  why  I  should  be  loved,  why  I  should 
hope  for  myself  a  beautiful  and  useful  life  or  a  glori 
ous  immortality  at  its  close,"54  she  meant  it.  When 
she  wrote  in  age,  "I  love  too  well  the  good  words  of 
the  good  concerning  what  I  do ;  I  have  not  the  control 
of  tongue  and  temper  that  I  ought  to  have,  .  .  .  and 


222    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

the  sweet  south  wind  of  love  has  not  yet  thawed  out 
the  ice-cake  of  selfishness  from  my  breast," 55  she  meant 
it  also,  even  if  she  might  have  preferred  saying  it  her 
self  to  having  any  one  else  say  it.  Yet  even  in  the 
humility  the  subtle  and  pervading  influence  of  the  ex 
emplary  life  does  make  itself  felt.  I  know  few  things 
more  curious  than  Miss  Willard's  elaborate  study  of 
her  own  faults  for  the  benefit  of  the  public.  After  the 
most  thorough  and  searching  investigation,  it  would 
appear  that  she  practically  finds  but  two,  and  of  those 
two  one  runs  eminent  risk  of  finally  turning  out  to  be 
a  virtue. 58 

I  do  not  mean,  however,  to  overstress  this  element 
of  self-consciousness  in  Miss  Willard,  which  was  en 
tirely  natural  and  almost  unavoidable  in  the  life  she  led. 
But,  no  matter  what  may  have  been  the  effects  of  that 
life  upon  her  character,  there  can  be  no  question  but 
that  she  enjoyed  it.  She  herself  tells  us  so.  She  had 
magnificent  health,  cherished  by  intelligent  care  and 
enduring  through  a  long  course  of  years.  "  Painless, 
in  a  world  of  pain/'57  she  says  of  herself,  — and  what  a 
qualification  that  is  for  hearty  enjoyment!  She  adds 
further  the  notable  sentence  already  quoted:  "The  chief 
wonder  of  my  life  is  that  I  dare  to  have  so  good  a  time, 
both  physically,  mentally  and  religiously."68  A  good 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD       223 

time  she  certainly  did  have.  All  the  excitement  of  the 
ordinary  public  entertainer  was  hers,  —  the  actor,  the 
singer,  the  performer  to  huge  audiences  generally. 
Everywhere  she  could  count  upon  an  attentive  hearing, 
usually  upon  an  enthusiastic  one;  and  if  she  had  to 
battle  to  make  it  so,  the  battle,  to  her  temperament,  was 
almost  as  delightful  as  the  victory.  But  to  the  general 
excitement  of  the  stage  and  the  platform  was  added 
the  far  greater  excitement  of  conscious  benevolent  mo 
tive.  You  were  stirring  all  these  crowds,  winning  all 
these  plaudits,  not  for  yourself,  not  for  your  personal 
glory,  but  for  a  great  cause,  —  for  the  advancement 
of  good  in  the  world,  to  hasten  the  splendid  coming  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  Perhaps  the  psychology  of  the 
philanthropist,  of  the  reformer,  of  the  evangelist  has 
yet  to  be  written  with  minute  and  analytical  care,  and 
he  will  never  be  the  one  to  write  it  himself.  But  Miss 
Willard  has  supplied  more  curious  information  on  the 
subject  than  any  one  else. 

Take  the  impressive  and  delightful  incident,  described 
by  her  and  by  others,  of  the  attack  on  the  Pittsburg 
saloon  by  a  group  of  women,  all  standing  in  earnest, 
awed  attention  along  the  curbstone,  while  "  a  sorrowful 
old  lady,  whose  only  son  had  gone  to  ruin  through  that 
very  deathtrap,  knelt  on  the  cold,  moist  pavement  and 


224    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

offered  a  broken-hearted  prayer."59  No  doubt  these 
are  the  things  that  move  the  world,  but  they  also  afford 
an  interest  beyond  any  other  for  those  who  take  part 
in  them.  Miss  Willard,  with  the  best  intentions,  wished 
to  deny  to  everybody  the  excitement  of  alcohol.  But 
she  herself  lived  on  the  fierce  excitement  of  doing  good, 
beside  which  all  other  stimulants  are  pale  and  watery. 

IV 

I  HAVE  thus  emphasized  the  vast  and  varied  enjoy 
ment  of  Miss  Willard's  life,  because  so  many  of  her 
admirers  have  called  it  a  life  of  sacrifice.  Of  course 
she  made  sacrifices.  Who  does  not?  When  she  chose 
her  philanthropic  career,  she  gave  up  a  prospect  of 
assured  ease  and  assured  usefulness  for  a  wild  and 
stormy  course  which  might  lead  nowhere.  And  at  other 
times  she  gave  up  other  things  which  were  hard  to 
relinquish.  But  to  call  her  life  a  life  of  sacrifice  in 
comparison  with  some  other  lives  would  be  absurd. 
How  many  women  go  daily  about  city  streets  to  relieve 
suffering,  to  comfort  misery,  to  cherish  fainting  hope, 
without  any  thought  of  reward  or  any  stimulus  of  glory, 
worn,  weary,  and  discouraged,  sacrificing  everything  to 
the  sense  of  duty  and  the  pressure  of  conscience !  How 
many  women  in  far  country  homes  live  long  lives  of 


FRANCES  ELIZABETH  WILLARD     225 

utter  monotony,  drudging  over  ugly  cares,  with  nothing 
but  grumbling  and  faultfinding  about  them,  their  habit 
of  existence  so  in-woven  with  sacrifice  that  they  cannot 
even  imagine  the  possibility  of  anything  else!  Beside 
these  how  can  any  one  talk  of  sacrifice  in  connection 
with  Frances  Elizabeth  Willard?  If  she  could  have 
been  convinced  that  she  could  bring  the  cause  she  served 
to  immediate  triumph  by  changing  places  with  one  of 
these  women,  I  think  so  highly  of  her  that  I  am  sure 
she  would  have  done  it.  But  what  ingenuity  she  would 
have  shown  in  resisting  the  conviction! 

Let  me  repeat,  then,  that  she  was  a  woman  of  noble 
character,  of  splendid  and  enduring  power,  one  who 
left  the  world  a  legacy  of  accomplishment  which  is 
to-day  maturing  into  the  widest  and  most  fruitful  re 
sults;  but  she  was  neither  a  martyr  nor  a  saint,  and, 
heavens,  how  she  did  enjoy  herself ! 


VIII 
EMILY   DICKINSON 


CHRONOLOGY 

Emily  Dickinson 

Born  in  Amherst,  Massachusetts,  December  10,  1830. 

Lived  in  Amherst. 

Died  in  Amherst,  May  15,  1886. 


EMILY  DICKINSON 


VIII 
EMILY  DICKINSON 

I 

ONE  who,  as  a  child,  knew  Emily  Dickinson  well  and 
loved  her  much  recollects  her  most  vividly  as  a  white, 
ethereal  vision,  stepping  from  her  cloistral  solitude 
onto  the  veranda,  daintily  unrolling  a  great  length  of 
carpet  before  her  with  her  foot,  strolling  down  to  where 
the  carpet  ended  among  her  flowers,  then  turning  back 
and  shutting  herself  out  of  the  world. 

It  is  just  so  that  we  must  think  of  her  as  coming  into 
the  larger  world  of  thought.  In  the  grimmest,  austerest 
background  of  restrained  New  England  habit  and 
tradition  in  the  mid-nineteenth  century  there  suddenly 
opens  a  sunlit  door  and  out  steps,  floats  rather,  this  white 
spirit  of  wonder  and  grace  and  fancy  and  mockery, 
shakes  folly's  bells,  swings  worship's  incense,  and  is  gone 
before  we  have  time  to  understand  her  coming. 

She,  if  any  one,  was  in  the  world,  but  not  of  it,  nof 
even  of  the  little  world  which  was  the  only  one  she  lived 
in.  The  atmosphere  of  a  New  England  college  town  like 
Amherst  is  in  itself  secluded  and  peculiar  with  a  clois- 


230    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

tered  charm.  Emily's  family  were  secluded  in  their  own 
souls,  even  from  those  who  knew  them  well.  Their 
home  was  secluded  in  quiet  gravity  and  dignity.  Out  of 
this  home,  in  her  years  of  womanhood,  Emily  rarely 
stepped;  out  of  Amherst  more  rarely  still.  So  perfect 
was  her  shy  isolation  that  it  seems  almost  profane  to 
disturb  her  in  it.  Yet  I  have  a  feeling  that  she  would 
have  wished  us  to.  The  shyest,  the  most  isolated,  are 
only  waiting,  even  in  their  lives,  for  one  to  come  whose 
loved  approach  shall  shatter  the  isolation  forever.  If 
the  isolation  is  never  shattered,  but  grows  closer  and 
thicker,  still  I  believe  that  it  nurses  the  hope  of  a  sym 
pathetic,  understanding  eye  that  shall  see  into  the  most 
hidden  corner  of  the  soul.  At  any  rate,  Emily,  from  her 
solitude,  speaks  out  to  us  in  puzzling,  teasing,  witching 
accents,  beckons  us,  dares  us,  as  it  were,  to  follow  her, 
to  seek  her,  unravel  her  mystery,  lay  a  searching  finger 
on  her  heart.  Who  can  resist  such  a  magical  solicita 
tion?  She  speaks  to  us  in  strange,  chaotic  verses,  not 
so  much  verses  as  clots  of  fire,  shreds  of  heaven,  snatches 
of  eternity.  She  speaks  to  us  in  letters,  chaotic  also,  but 
perhaps  more  fit  and  helpful  for  our  purpose  of  ap 
proaching  her  than  the  poems.  We  will  use  the  letters 
to  advance  with  more  humdrum  steps  and  now  and  then 
get  a  flash  of  sudden  illumination  from  the  verses. 


EMILY  DICKINSON  231 

To  begin  with,  let  me  re-emphasize  the  shyness  and 
isolation.  She  sought  it,  she  loved  it.  Even  in  child 
hood  she  left  home  with  reluctance  and  returned  with 
ecstasy.  It  was  not  because  her  inner  life  was  dull  and 
bounded,  but  because  it  was  vast  and  wandering;  and 
loved,  common  things  were  all  that  anchored  her  to 
herself.  "  Home,"  she  says,  "  is  the  riddle  of  the  wise 
—  the  booty  of  the  dove." 1 

She  was  well  aware,  of  course,  of  the  solitude  she 
lived  in.  "Nothing  has  happened  but  loneliness,"  she 
writes  to  a  friend,  "perhaps  too  daily  to  relate."2  But 
you  err  much  if  you  think  the  solitude  was  barren  or 
empty.  Light,  bright  thoughts  swarmed  in  it,  quick  and 
eager  fancies,  wide  desires,  wider  hopes,  and  endless 
laughter. 

She  had  books  as  companions. 

"  Unto  my  books  so  good  to  turn 
Far  ends  of  tired  days."  3 

To  be  sure,  she  was  no  student,  no  persistent,  systematic 
reader,  as  Mrs.  Ripley  was.  She  would  pick  up  and 
put  down:  a  chapter  or  a  page  was  enough  for  her, 
enough  to  kindle  hope  or  quench  ennui,  if  she  ever  felt 
any.  But  her  immense  capacity  of  being  stimulated 
could  not  resist  a  book.  She  loved  words,  says  her  niece, 
Mrs.  Bianchi;  "the  joy  of  mere  words  was  to  Aunt 


232    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

Emily  like  red  and  yellow  balls  to  the  juggler." 4  How 
then  could  she  fail  to  love  the  royal  masters  of  words? 
Her  father  liked  "  lonely  and  rigorous  books,"  she  told 
Colonel  Higginson,  but  she  preferred  them  more  grace 
ful  or  touched  with  fire.  After  her  first  real  one,  she 
said  to  herself,  "  This,  then,  is  a  book,  and  there  are  more 
of  them  ?  " 5  When  she  found  Shakespeare,  she  thought 
the  world  needed  nothing  else. 

She  had  the  piano  as  a  companion;  played  upon  it 
gayly;  turned  common  airs  into  wild,  fantastic  reveries, 
"  One  improvisation  which  she  called  the  Devil  was,  by 
tradition,  unparalleled."6  We  may  assume  that  she 
loved  the  other  arts  also,  as  well  as  music ;  at  least  that 
they  fed  her  fancy,  though  her  life  did  not  bring  her  near 
them. 

And  nature  was  the  friend  of  her  secluded  spirit. 
"You  ask  of  my  companions.  Hills,  sir,  and  the  sun 
down,  and  a  dog  as  large  as  myself,  that  my  father 
bought  me." 7  Flowers  and  trees  and  birds  and  insects 
talked  to  her,  and  she  to  them,  in  that  strange  speech 
which  they  perhaps  understood  better  than  her  human 
fellows.  What  the  charm  of  this  converse  was  she  inti 
mates  to  us  in  light,  delicate  touches :  "  We  are  having 
such  lovely  weather — the  air  is  as  sweet  and  still — now 
and  then  a  gay  leaf  falling  —  the  crickets  sing  all  day 


EMILY  DICKINSON  233 

long  —  high  in  the  crimson  tree  a  belated  bird  is  sing 
ing."  8  Or  she  can  go  behind  this  bare  portrayal  of  the 
surface  and  bring  out  wayward  glimpses  of  hidden  feel 
ing,  vague  and  subtle  hints  of  dim  emotion  such  as 
flutter  in  all  our  spirits  and  are  gone  before  we  can 
define  them.  She  can  do  this  in  verse : 

"  There 's  a  certain  slant  of  light, 

On  winter  afternoons, 
That  oppresses  like  the  weight 
Of  cathedral  tunes."9 

She  can  do  it  even  better,  to  my  feeling,  in  prose :  "  Noth 
ing  is  gone,  dear,  or  no  one  that  you  knew.  The  forests 
are  at  home,  the  mountains  intimate  at  night  and  arro 
gant  at  noon.  A  lonesome  fluency  abroad,  like  sus 
pended  music." 10 

From  suggestions  such  as  these  it  is  evident  that  even 
if  outside  adjuncts  failed  her  wholly,  she  had  sufficient 
society  in  her  own  thoughts.  She  lived  in  a  hurrying 
swarm  of  them,  a  cloud  and  tumult  of  manifold  reflec 
tions,  which  made  the  gross,  material  contact  of  daily 
human  speech  and  gesture  seem  poor  and  common.  She 
shut  herself  off  in  this  silent  hurly-burly  as  in  an  aristo 
cratic  garment  of  her  own.  "  How  do  most  people  live 
without  any  thoughts?"  she  cried.  "There  are  many 
people  of  the  world  —  you  must  have  noticed  them  in 


234    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

the  street  —  how  they  live?  How  do  they  get  strength 
to  put  on  their  clothes  in  the  morning?  " ll  She  herself 
put  on  in  the  morning  a  garment  of  scintillating  radiance 
and  only  exchanged  it  at  night  for  a  lighter  robe  of 
gleaming  stars.  "In  a  life  that  stopped  guessing  you 
and  I  should  not  feel  at  home," 12  she  says.  She  filled 
the  universe  with  her  guesses  and  then  made  comments 
on  them  that  were  more  perplexing  than  the  guesses 
were.  Not  that  she  was  in  any  way  a  systematic  thinker 
any  more  than  reader.  Heavens,  no !  She  could  never 
have  labored  with  the  slow  and  ordered  speculations  of 
Mrs.  Ripley.  Sometimes  she  sets  up  a  stable  reign  of 
goodness  in  the  world,  believes  that  things  will  be  well 
with  us  and  asserts  it  hopefully :  "  I  'm  afraid  we  are  all 
unworthy,  yet  we  shall  'enter  in/"13  Sometimes  she 
doubts,  rebels  even,  wonders  whether  suffering  has  at 
all  its  due  complement  of  loving,  murmurs  in  wayward 
petulence,  "  It  will  never  look  kind  to  me  that  God,  who 
causes  all,  denies  such  little  wishes." 14  And  always,  to 
her  probing  guess,  the  world  and  life  are  veiled  in  mys 
tery,  and  on  the  whole  she  is  not  ungrateful.  "  It  is  true 
that  the  unknown  is  the  largest  need  of  the  intellect, 
though  for  it  no  one  thinks  to  thank  God." 15 

It  was  perhaps,  then,  dreams  that  were  her  playfellows 
rather  than  thoughts,  at  least  thoughts  broken,  con- 


EMILY  DICKINSON  235 

densed,  abbreviated,  intensified.  No  doubt  she  thought 
as  she  spoke  and  wrote,  in  gleams  and  figures,  and  her 
oddities  of  speech,  though  they  may  have  been  slightly 
emphasized  by  too  much  Carlyle  and  Browning;  were, 
like  her  oddities  of  action,  not  affectations  of  manner, 
but  real  oddities,  quaintnesses,  inspired  flashes  of  soul. 
She  lived  in  a  world  of  dreams,  —  dreams  above  her, 
dreams  about  her,  dreams  beneath  her.  Now  and  then, 
as  we  all  do  in  our  rarer  moments  of  half -conscious 
somnolence,  she  rubs  her  eyes  and  asks  herself  of  her 
condition:  "Sometimes  I  wonder  if  I  ever  dreamed  — 
then  if  I  'm  dreaming  now,  then  if  I  always  dreamed.5' 18 
But  the  eyes  close  again,  and  the  dreams  press  more 
thickly,  sweet  phantoms  that  crowd  and  shudder  into 
one  another  in  the  strange,  disordered  way  dreams  have. 
"  The  lawn  is  full  of  south  and  the  odors  tangle,  and  I 
hear  to-day  for  the  first  [time]  the  river  in  the  tree." 1T 
She  tries  to  clutch  them,  to  stay  their  dim  and  fluttering 
passage :  "  I  would  eat  evanescence  slowly  " ; 18  but  they 
quiver  and  fade  and  vanish,only  to  give  place  to  others 
as  fantastic  and  enchanting  as  themselves. 

Yet  back  of  the  dream  playfellows  there  is  one  sub 
stance  that  endures  and  never  fails  her,  —  God,  set  solid 
in  the  white,  unchanging  background  of  eternity.  And 
I  do  not  say  that  she  had  any  dry,  mental  conviction 


236    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

about  these  things.  When  mortal  pangs  come,  they 
rend  and  tear  her  hope  as  they  do  others ' : 

"  My  life  closed  twice  before  its  close ; 

It  yet  remains  to  see 
If  immortality  unveil 

A  third  event  to  me, 
So  huge,  so  hopeless  to  conceive, 

As  these  that  twice  befell. 
Parting  is  all  we  know  of  heaven, 

And  all  we  need  of  hell." 19 

And  I  do  not  say  that  God  was  anything  tangible  to  her, 
like  her  father  in  the  next  room.  If  He  had  been,  she 
would  not  have  found  Him  God,  or  loved  Him  when  she 
had  her  father.  In  her  quaint,  wild  way  she  even  indi 
cates  that  she  loved  God  because  He  shunned  society  as 
she  did.  "  They  say  that  God  is  everywhere,  and  yet  we 
always  think  of  Him  as  somewhat  of  a  recluse." 20  But 
God  filled  her  solitude,  God  gave  life  and  body  to  her 
dreams,  God  made  evanescence  stay  with  her,  or  turned 
evanescence  into  an  all-sustaining,  all-enfolding,  all- 
satisfying  duration,  which  made  the  vague,  unquiet 
futility  of  common  life  not  only  bearable  but  lovely,  even 
to  her  restless  and  inquiring  spirit. 

Still,  for  all  God  and  dreams,  I  would  not  wholly  cut 
off  her  image  from  humanities.  "  I  often  wonder  how 
the  love  of  Christ  is  done  when  that  below  holds  so." 21 
That  below  held  her.  Let  us  see  how. 


EMILY  DICKINSON  237 

II 

IN  early  life  she  would  seem  not  to  have  avoided  even 
general  society.  There  are  records  of  social  gatherings, 
dances,  varied  merrymakings,  in  which  she  took  a  ready, 
gay,  and  active  part,  without  any  marked  indication  of 
undue  withdrawal  within  herself.  In  her  schooldays  she 
was  attractive  and,  if  not  exactly  popular,  could  always 
use  her  wit  and  fun  to  draw  listeners  and  lovers.  As  a 
young  woman  in  Amherst,  she  did  not  wholly  refuse 
herself  to  the  conventional  demands  of  social  inter 
course,  though  it  is  evident  that  she  yielded  with  protest 
and  escaped  with  a  sigh  of  relief :  "  We  go  out  very  little; 
once  in  a  month  or  two  we  both  set  sail  in  silks,  touch  at 
the  principal  points  and  then  put  into  port  again.  Vinnie 
cruises  about  some  to  transact  commerce,  but  coming  to 
anchor  is  most  I  can  do." 22  The  general  kindness  of  the 
world,  its  chilly  and  indifferent  courtesy,  its  ready  and 
empty  acceptance  and  circulation  of  cordial  nothings 
grated  on  her  direct  and  poignant  spirit.  She  would  not 
endure  the  haggard  necessities  of  parlor  conversation. 
She  was  suspicious  even  of  real  sympathy  from  an  un 
authorized  source:  "Thank  you  for  tenderness.  I  find 
that  is  the  only  food  the  Will  takes  now,  — and  that,  not 
from  general  fingers." 23 


238    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  she  had  her  need  of  human 
affection,  like  every  one  of  us,  hungered  for  it,  starved 
for  it  at  times.  She  wanted  those  she  loved  when  she 
wanted  them,  wanted  them  as  she  wanted  them,  expected 
their  devotion  to  her  bidding,  though  she  was  so  coy 
about  doing  theirs.  When  she  said  come,  they  were  to 
come,  and  go,  to  go.  If  they  did  not,  it  vexed  her:  "I 
think  I  hemmed  them  faster  for  knowing  you  weren't 

coming,  my  fingers  had  nothing  else  to  do Odd,  that  I, 

who  say  'no'  so  much,  cannot  bear  it  from  others."24 
She  well  knew  the  bounds  and  limits  of  friendship;  but 
perhaps  she  prized  it  all  the  more  on  that  account.  Her 
love  was  as  abiding  as  it  was  elusive.  Grasp  it  and  it 
flitted  away  from  you.  Then  it  flitted  back,  like  a  deli 
cate  butterfly,  and  teased  and  tantalized  your  heart  with 
quaint  touches  of  tenderness,  till  you  knew  not  whether 
to  laugh  or  weep.  "  I  hold  you  few  I  love,  till  my  heart 
is  red  as  February  and  purple  as  March," 25  she  murmurs 
in  her  strange  idiom;  and  again  she  flings  love  wide 
beyond  even  the  permanence  of  her  own  soul,  "To  live 
lasts  always,  but  to  love  is  finer  than  to  live." 26 

These  things  rather  for  outside  friendship.  As  for 
her  family,  she  clung  to  them  with  the  close  persistence 
of  a  warm  burr,  which  pricks  and  sticks.  She  knew  all 
their  foibles,  of  which  that  stern  New  England  house- 


EMILY  DICKINSON  239 

hold  had  enough.  She  sets  them  out  with  the  calmest 
realization,  as  a  keen-sighted  heart  will,  must :  "  Mother 
and  Margaret  are  so  kind,  father  as  gentle  as  he  knows 
how,  and  Vinnie  good  to  me,  but '  cannot  see  why  I  don't 
get  well'";27  or  in  a  more  general,  inimitable  picture: 
"  I  have  a  brother  and  sister ;  my  mother  does  not  care 
for  thought,  and  father,  too  busy  with  his  briefs  to  notice 
what  we  do.  He  buys  me  many  books,  but  begs  me  not 
to  read  them,  because  he  fears  they  joggle  the  mind. 
They  are  religious,  except  me,  and  address  an  eclipse, 
every  morning,  whom  they  call  their  'Father.'"28  Yet 
she  loved  them  all,  with  a  deep,  devoted  tenderness.  Her 
mother  comes  to  us  mainly  as  a  shadow  figure,  to  be 
petted  and  spared  and  cared  for.  Her  sister  was  a  swift,, 
practical  personage,  not  too  ready  to  enjoy  Emily's 
vagaries,  but  trained  to  accept  them.  She  swept  and 
dusted  and  cooked,  and  tried  sometimes  to  get  a  useful 
hand  from  her  dreaming  sister, — a  useful  hand,  perhaps, 
when  she  got  it;  but  I  fancy  she  often  wished  she  had 
not.  Of  the  two  brothers,  Austen  was  Emily's  favorite, 
or  at  least  she  looked  up  to  him  as  she  did  to  her  father, 
a  stern,  august,  impressive  face  and  spirit.  Intimate 
communion  with  such  a  one  must  have  been  difficult  for 
anybody.  Certainly  Emily  would  not  have  looked  for  it 
nor  expected  it.  But  to  touch  that  granite  soul  and  feel 


240    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

that  it  belonged  to  you,  made  life  seem  more  solid  and 
death  less  terrible. 

And  the  same  was  far  truer  of  her  father.  Cer 
tainly  he  never  put  his  cheek  or  his  heart  against  hers, 
never  fondled  her  or  caressed  her.  She  would  not 
have  wished  such  things,  would  have  resented  them. 
"  Father's  real  life  and  mine  sometimes  come  into  col 
lision,"  she  says,  "but  as  yet  escape  unhurt." 29  But  she 
looked  up  to  him,  how  she  looked  up  to  him !  Or  rather, 
she  was  always  looking  up,  and  in  doing  so  she  found 
her  father's  face  a  marked  signpost  on  the  way  to  God. 

Yet  she  could  not  touch  those  she  loved  best,  friends, 
or  near,  dear  kinsfolk.  None  of  us  can,  you  say.  To  be 
sure ;  but  she  knew  it  and  most  of  us  do  not.  She  moved 
among  her  family  and  through  their  house  like  the 
ghostly  shadow  of  a  rare  desire.  The  little  needs  and 
calls  of  domestic  duty  she  detested,  though  she  some 
times  took  her  part  in  them.  Hear  her  wayward  fancy 
describe  that  soul's  pest,  a  household  removal:  "I  can 
not  tell  you  how  we  moved.  I  had  rather  not  remember. 
I  believe  my  '  effects '  were  brought  in  a  bandbox,  and  the 
'deathless  me/  on  foot,  not  many  moments  after.  I 
took  at  the  time  a  memorandum  of  my  several  senses, 
and  also  of  my  hat  and  coat,  and  my  best  shoes  —  but 
it  was  lost  in  the  melee,  and  I  am  out  with  lanterns, 


EMILY  DICKINSON  241 

looking  for  myself/' 30  The  patient  solicitude  of  nursing 
tenderness  she  gave  no  doubt  most  deftly  and  de 
votedly,  yet  one  feels  its  burden:  "Mother's  dear  little 
wants  so  engross  the  time  ...  I  hardly  have  said 
'Good-morning,  mother/  when  I  hear  myself  saying, 
'Mother,  good-night/"31 

But  her  isolation  from  these  crying,  crowding  human 
realities  about  her  went  deeper  than  the  mere  irksome- 
ness  of  daily  duty.  The  trouble  was  that  they  were  not 
realities  but  shadows,  as  she  herself  was,  even  more. 
What  was  sure  and  reliable  and  eternal  and  beyond  the 
touch  of  trouble,  was  solitude  and  loneliness,  where  she 
could  forever  regale  herself  with  the  infinite  companion 
ship  of  thought.  These  dear  human  perplexities  flitted 
in  unaccountably.  Before  you  could  adjust  yourself  to 
them,  they  were  gone,  and  you  were  never  quite  certain 
whether  they  left  love  behind  them  or  torment.  "  Perhaps 
death  gave  me  awe  for  friends,  striking  sharp  and  early, 
for  I  held  them  since  in  a  brittle  love,  of  more  alarm 
than  peace." 32 

Then  one  wonders  how  it  was  with  the  greatest  love 
of  all,  the  love  of  sex  for  sex.  Did  it  help  her  or  hurt 
her  or  ever  come  near  her  ?  That  she  was  fitted  to  draw 
the  love  of  men  is  clear  enough.  She  was  strangely, 
puzzlingly  beautiful.  It  was  not  an  every-day,  peach  and 


242     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

cream,  ballroom  beauty.  She  teased  and  startled  witH 
her  face  as  with  her  soul.  Her  piercing,  disconcerting 
eyes;  her  rich,  gleaming,  gold-auburn  hair;  her  white, 
fragile,  ever-stirring,  questioning  hands;  her  move 
ments,  light  and  wafted  as  the  movements  of  a  dream, 
—  all  these  must  have  tormented  men's  hearts  as  the 
wild  suggestion  of  her  words  did.  We  know  that  she 
had  lovers  in  the  early  days,  when  the  world  touched 
her;  and  the  memory  of  her  fairy  charm  must  have 
haunted  many  who  never  thought  of  spoken  love.  But 
how  was  she  herself  affected  ?  Did  she  return  the  love 
that  came  to  her,  or  long  to  return  it,  or  have  a  girl's 
visions  of  what  it  might  be  if  it  came  in  all  its  glory 
and  were  returned?  The  record  of  these  things  is  dim 
and  vague.  In  her  early  youth  she  looks  forward,  mock 
ingly,  to  lovers,  and  expects  to  be  the  belle  of  Amherst 
when  she  reaches  her  seventeenth  year.  "  Then  how  I 
shall  delight  to  make  them  await  my  bidding,  and  with 
what  delight  shall  I  witness  their  suspense  while  I  make 
my  final  decision." 33  Later  love  calls  her  to  a  rapturous 
hour,  though  duty  forbids  and  she  overcomes  the  tempta 
tion,  —  "  not  a  glorious  victory,  where  you  hear  the  roll 
ing  drum,  but  a  kind  of  helpless  victory,  where  triumph 
would  come  of  itself,  faintest  music,  weary  soldiers,  nor 
a  waving  flag,  nor  a  long,  loud  shout." 34  And  through 


EMILY   DICKINSON  243 

the  letters  and  through  the  poems  there  breathes  often 
the  faint,  poignant  perfume  of  love,  flickers  the  way 
ward,  purple  flame  of  love,  —  love  questioning,  love  ex 
ultant,  love  despairing,  at  once  immortal  and  impossible. 

But  who  could  realize  Emily  at  the  head  of  a  house 
hold,  a  calm,  buxom  matron,  providing  her  husband's 
dinner  and  ordering  the  domestic  duties  ?  As  well  yoke 
a  wood-nymph  to  the  plough.  And  children  —  doubt 
less  she  loved  children,  the  children  of  others,  played 
with  them,  laughed  with  them,  wept  with  them.  Per 
haps  children  of  her  own  would  have  been  hardly  envia 
ble.  She  was  made  to  dream  of  all  these  things,  to  step 
for  a  moment  into  the  tumult  of  others'  tears  and 
laughter,  always  with  the  protecting  carpet  daintily  un 
rolled  before  her  feet,  then  to  vanish  quietly,  visionlike, 
back  into  the  blue  void,  her  own  inner  region,  where 
there  was  still  that  colossal,  constant  companion,  God, 
and  the  echoing  silence  of  eternity. 

And  if  love  did  not  often  tempt  her  out  of  this  soli 
tude,  did  conscience  sometimes  urge  her  out?  Did  she 
feel  that  the  world  needed  her,  that  there  were  deeds  to 
be  done  and  fights  to  be  won  ?  Did  she  suffer  from  that 
restless,  haunting  desire  of  action  which  so  many  of  us 
misread  and  call  by  fine  names,  but  which  more  or  less 
overrides  almost  all  of  us  with  its  impetuous  tyranny? 


244    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

She  perhaps  as  little  as  any.  But  I  seem  to  catch  at  least 
some  understanding  of  it  in  the  exquisite,  tender  solici 
tation  to  a  doubting  heart :  "  All  we  are  strangers,  dear, 
the  world  is  not  acquainted  with  us,  because  we  are  not 
acquainted  with  her;  and  pilgrims.  Do  you  hesitate? 
And  soldiers,  oft — some  of  us  victors,  but  those  I  do 
not  see  to-night,  owing  to  the  smoke.  We  are  hungry, 
and  thirsty,  sometimes,  we  are  barefoot  and  cold — 
will  you  still  come?"38  But  the  smoke  and  the  soldiers 
and  the  fighting  were  mostly  drowned  in  quiet  —  for 

her. 

Ill 

Do  not,  however,  for  a  moment  suppose  that  because 
her  feet  were  quiet  her  mind  was,  that  because  she  re 
fused  to  live  in  the  casual  world  herself  she  was  not 
interested  in  the  casual  life  of  others.  On  the  contrary, 
do  we  not  know  that  these  solitary,  passionate  recluses 
live  all  life  over  iti  their  windowed  cells,  that  it  is  the 
wild  abundance  of  other  lives  in  their  rioting  imagina 
tions  that  makes  all  possible  adventures  of  their  own 
seem  tame  and  frigid  ?  Do  we  not  know  old  Burton,  who 
sucked  strange  melancholy  from  the  confused  chaos 
that  rumbled  about  him,  whose  dear  delight  was  to  turn 
from  his  thumbed  folios  to  the  loud,  profane  quarreling 
of  bargemen  by  the  riverside?  Do  we  not  know  Flau- 


EMILY  DICKINSON  245 

bert,  who  shut  himself  up  in  his  ivory  tower,  only  to  lean 
from  his  window  in  the  moonlight  and  hear  the  dim 
revelry  and  causeless  laughter  of  the  children  of  men? 
So  Emily.  The  action  she  dreamed  of  was  too  vast  for 
the  poor,  trammeled  limits  of  this  world.  But  she  found 
an  absorbed  pleasure  in  watching  this  world's  stumbling, 
struggling  labors,  all  the  same.  It  was  not  so  much  con 
crete  facts,  not  the  contemporary  history  which  seems 
all-important  to  those  who  are  making  it  and  mainly 
dies  when  they  do.  Politics?  Emily  cannot  fix  her 
thoughts  on  politics.  "Won't  you  please  tell  me  when 
you  answer  my  letter  who  the  candidate  for  President 
is  ?  ...  I  don't  know  anything  more  about  affairs  in  the 
world  than  if  I  were  in  a  trance." 36  But  human  passion, 
human  love,  human  hope,  and  human  despair,  these  ab 
sorb  her,  these  distract  her,  with  an  inexhaustible  inter 
est.  She  feels  them  in  the  touch  of  human  hands  and 
reads  them  in  human  faces : 

"  I  like  a  look  of  agony, 
Because  I  know  it 's  true ; 
Men  do  not  sham  convulsion, 
Nor  simulate  a  throe." 87 

The  thrill  of  life,  its  glitter,  its  color,  her  eyes  and  her 
thoughts  were  awake  for  them  always :  "  Friday  I  tasted 
life.  It  was  a  vast  morsel.  A  circus  passed  the  house 


246    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

—  still  I  feel  the  red  in  my  mind  though  the  drums  are 

out"38 

This  vivid  sense  of  the  intensity,  the  ardor,  the  emo 
tional  possibility  of  things,  filled  her  with  passion  so 
overwhelming  that  it  could  not  be  expressed  directly. 
Words  were  inadequate,  and  she  was  obliged  to  take 
refuge  in  jest,  mockery,  fantastic  whim,  which  merely 
deepen  the  message  of  underlying  feeling  for  those  who 
understand.  She  was  own  sister  to  Charles  Lamb  in 
this,  —  Lamb  in  whom  tears  were  so  close  to  laughter 
and  the  most  apparently  wanton  jesting  the  cover  for  a 
tortured  heart.  It  seems  at  moments  as  if  Emily  mocked 
everything.  She  sits  idly  on  the  stile  in  the  sunshine 
and  lets  the  great  circus  of  the  world  pass  by  her, 
riddling  its  vain  parade  with  shafts  of  dainty  laughter. 
She  is  simple,  she  says,  childish,  she  says,  plays  all  day 
with  trifles,  regardless  of  the  mad  doings  of  real  men  and 
women.  "  As  simple  as  you  please,  the  simplest  sort  of 
simple  —  I  '11  be  a  little  ninny,  a  little  pussy  catty,  a  little 
Red  Riding  Hood ;  I  '11  wear  a  bee  in  my  bonnet,  and  a 
rosebud  in  my  hair,  and  what  remains  to  do  you  shall  be 
told  hereafter."39 

She  carried  the  screen  of  whim  not  only  into  verbal 
mockery,  but  into  strange  fancies  of  capricious  action, 
tricks  of  Puck  and  Ariel,  which  amazed  and  delighted 


EMILY  DICKINSON  247 

children  and  simple  hearts,  but  annoyed  an'd  discon 
certed  the  grave,  staid,  older  children  who  had  never 
grown  up  to  real  childishness.  She  would  drop  kittens 
to  drown  in  a  pickle  jar  and  shudder  with  scared  glee 
when  they  were  served  up  on  the  hospitable  table  to  a 
visiting  judge. 40  She  would  say  to  another  grave  judge, 
as  Falstaff  might  have,  when  the  plum-pudding  was 
lighted :  "  Oh,  sir,  may  one  eat  of  hell  fire  with  impunity 
here?  "41  And  in  all  these  fantastic  tricks  there  was  no 
affectation,  though  some  thought  so  who  did  not  under 
stand,  no  affectation  in  the  sense  of  a  conscious  effort  to 
impress  or  astonish.  There  was  no  vagary  of  the  wit 
less.  It  was  simply  the  direct  impression  of  a  great, 
strange  world  in  a  heart  which  could  not  grasp  it  and 
strove  to,  and  gave  right  back  the  bewitching  oddities  it 
founid. 

And  if  this  surface  of  confusing  eccentricity 
might  be  thought  to  imply  a  callous  or  even  cruel 
indifference  to  what  others  took  with  enormous  and 
bewildered  seriousness,  it  must  be  repeated  and  insisted 
that,  as  with  Lamb,  the  eccentricity  was  a  mere  mask 
for  the  most  complete  and  sensitive  sympathy,  extending 
often  to  pity  and  tears.  She  was  a  sister  of  Lamb.  She 
was  also  a  sister  of  those  most  delicate  creatures  of  the 
whole  world's  imagination,  the  clowns  of  Shakespeare; 


248    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

and  if  Touchstone  and  Feste  could  not  surpass  her  in 
exquisite  fooling,  she  was  equally  akin  to  the  tragic 
tenderness  of  the  clown  in  "  Lear."  It  needed  all  the 
gayety  and  all  the  trifling  and  all  the  mad  songs  to  keep 
down  the  waves  of  sorrow  that  would  surge  upward  in 
her  spirit,  and  at  times  not  all  would  do.  "  If  we  can  get 
our  hearts  'under/  I  don't  have  much  to  fear  —  I've 
got  all  but  three  feelings  down,  if  I  can  only  keep 
them!"42 

So,  in  the  effort  to  explain  or  forget  she  mocked  at 
all  the  grave  and  busy  problems  of  the  world.  Love? 
A  divine,  unrealizable  dream,  so  tantalizing  in  its  witch 
ery  that  one  could  not  but  make  a  tender  jest  of  it. 
Money?  Possessions?  Oh,  the  solid,  evanescent  things ! 
The  foundations  of  our  souls  rest  on  them  and  they 
slip  away  and  leave  us  weltering.  We  must  make  a 
jest  of  them  too.  "  You  know  I  should  expire  of  mor 
tification  to  have  our  rye-field  mortgaged,  to  say  noth 
ing  of  its  falling  into  the  merciless  hands  of  a  loco!"43 
And  the  busy  people  of  the  world,  the  grave,  substan 
tial,  active,  useful  people.  She  is  not  useful,  and  she 
knows  it  and  deplores  it.  Yet,  deploring  her  own  in 
activity,  she  cannot  go  without  her  jest  at  the  others: 

"  L goes  to  Sunderland,  Wednesday,  for  a  minute 

or  two;  leaves  here  at  half-past  six  —  what  a  fitting 


EMILY  DICKINSON  249 

hour  —  and  will  breakfast  the  night  before;  such  a 
smart  atmosphere!  The  trees  stand  right  up  straight 
when  they  hear  her  boots,  and  will  bear  crockery  wrares 
instead  of  fruit,  I  fear."  44  And  again  she  sums  up  this 
mighty  buzz  and  hum  of  the  achieving  world  —  or  the 
world  that  dreams  it  is  achieving — with  the  image 
of  a  circus,  probably  the  most  vivid  form  of  vain 
activity  that  came  under  her  touch:  "There  is  circus 
here,  and  farmers'  Commencement,  and  boys  and  girls 
from  Tripoli,  and  governors  and  swords  parade  the 
summer  streets.  They  lean  upon  the  fence  that 
guards  the  quiet  church  ground,  and  jar  the  grass  row, 
warm  and  soft  as  a  tropic  nest."45  Or  a  briefer 
word  gives  the  same  vast — to  staid  souls  how  hor 
rifying! —  lesson  to  a  child:  "I  am  glad  it  is  your 
birthday.  It  is  this  little  bouquet's  birthday  too.  Its 
Father  is  a  very  old  man  by  the  name  of  Nature,  whom 
you  never  saw.  Be  sure  to  live  in  vain,  dear.  I  wish 
I  had."46 

And  if  she  could  mock  the  most  serious  things  of  this 
world,  do  not  suppose  that  she  had  the  slightest  hesita 
tion  about  mocking  another.  Eternity  was  so  near  her 
always  that  she  treated  it  as  familiarly  as  her  brothers 
and  sisters,  and  to  step  out  of  the  wide-open  door  of 
death  seemed  far  less  of  an  adventure  than  to  step  out 


250    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

of  the  grim,  closed  front  door  into  the  streets  of  Am- 
herst.  Ill-health,  whether  as  the  prelude  to  death  or 
as  the  torment  of  life,  she  could  touch  lightly.  In 
strangers  she  could  trifle  with  it:  "Mrs.  S.  is  very 
feeble;  'can't  bear  allopathic  treatment,  can't  have 
homoeopathic,  don't  want  hydropathic/  oh,  what  a  pickle 
she  is  in ! " 47  In  her  own  family  she  takes  it  as  easily : 
"  We  are  sick  hardly  ever  at  home,  and  don't  know  what 
to  do  when  it  comes,  —  wrinkle  our  little  brows,  and 
stamp  with  our  little  feet,  and  our  tiny  souls  get  angry, 
and  command  it  to  go  away." 48  When  the  blow  struck 
herself,  she  may  have  writhed,  but  we  have  nothing  to 
show  it.  There  is  the  same  mockery  to  wave  it  aside: 
"My  head  aches  a  little,  and  my  heart  a  little  more, 
30  taking  me  collectively,  I  seem  quite  miserable;  but 
I  '11  give  you  the  sunny  corners,  and  you  must  n't  look 
at  the  shade."49 

Religion,  formal  religion,  Sunday  religion,  the  reli 
gion  of  staid  worship  and  rock-bound  creeds,  she  takes 
as  airily,  with  as  astonishing  whiffs  of  indifference,  not 
to  say  irreverence.  If  a  phrase  of  scripture,  even  the 
most  sacred,  fits  a  jest,  she  takes  it.  If  a  solemn  piece 
of  starched  emptiness  in  the  pulpit  ruffles  her  nice  and 
tender  spirit,  she  does  not  hesitate  to  turn  him  into 
delicate  and  cutting  ridicule.  Faith,  she  says,  oh,  yes, 


EMILY  DICKINSON  251 

faith,  how  august,  how  venerable!  "We  dignify  our 
faith  when  we  can  cross  the  ocean  with  it,  though  most 
prefer  ships."50  A  revival  comes  to  town.  I  have  no 
doubt  its  deeper  side  stirred  her  whole  soul.  But  this 
she  cannot  put  into  adequate  speech,  and  instead: 
"There  is  that  which  is  called  an  'awakening'  in  the 
church,  and  I  know  of  no  choicer  ecstasy  than  to  see 

Mrs.  roll  out  in  crape  every  morning,  I  suppose 

to  intimidate  antichrist;  at  least  it  would  have  that 
effect  on  me."51 

Even  her  most  intimate  friend,  her  comforter  and 
consoler,  her  everlasting  solace,  God,  is  treated  with 
such  light  ease  as  an  intimate  friend  would  be.  We 
have  seen  that  every  morning  her  family  prayed  to  an 
eclipse  whom  they  called  their  Father.  Elsewhere  the 
tone  is  just  the  same:  "If  prayers  had  any  answers 
to  them,  you  were  all  here  to-night,  but  I  seek  and  I 
don't  find,  and  knock  and  it  is  not  opened.  Wonder  if 
God  is  just — presume  He  is,  however,  and  'twas  only 
a  blunder  of  Matthew's."52  Or,  take  much  the  same 
thing,  in  apparently  more  solemn  form,  but  really  as 
daring  as  Omar  Khayyam : 

" '  Heavenly  Father/  take  to  thee 
The  supreme  iniquity, 
Fashioned  by  thy  candid  hand 
In  a  moment  contraband. 


252    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN! 

Though  to  trust  us  seem  to  us 
More  respectful  — '  we  are  dust/ 
We  apologize  to  thee 
For  thine  own  duplicity."  53 

I  quote  verse  here  to  show  that  every  phase  of 
Emily's  thought  and  character  could  be  illustrated  from 
her  poems  as  well  as  from  her  letters.  Criticism  of 
the  poems  as  such  is  not  within  the  limits  of  my  pur 
pose.  Yet  even  the  most  abstract  literary  criticism  of 
a  writer's  works  usually  serves  to  give  some  clue  to 
the  writer's  mind.  And  doubtless  the  puzzling  inco- 
herency  and  complexity  of  Emily's  versicles,  the  wild 
vagary  of  her  rhythm  and  rhyme,  express  the  inner 
workings  of  her  spirit,  as  Milton's  majestic  diction  and 
movement  imply  the  ample  grandeur  of  his  soul.  Com 
mon  words  come  from  common  lips  and  rare  from 
rare,  and  if  the  rareness  verges  on  oddity  in  utterance 
there  is  oddity  in  the  spirit  too.  At  any  rate,  it  is  in 
disputable  that  every  trait  I  have  been  working  out  in 
Emily's  letters  could  be  found  in  the  poems,  also,  only 
more  obscure,  more  veiled,  more  dubious,  more  mys 
tical.  The  love  of  friends  is  there  and  the  search  for 
them  and  the  hopeless  impossibility  of  touching  them. 
The  longing  for  love  is  there,  all  its  mystery,  its  ravish 
ing  revelations  and  its  burden.  The  intense  joy  of  life 
is  there;  its  vivid  color,  its  movement,  its  sparkle,  its 


EMILY   DICKINSON  253 

merriment,  its  absurdity.  There,  too,  is  the  turning 
away  from  it  with  vast  relief,  quiet,  solitude,  peace, 
eternity,  and  God. 

It  will  be  asked  whether,  in  writing  her  vast  number 
of  little  verses,  Emily  had  any  definite  idea  of  literary 
ambition,  of  success  and  glory.  Certainly  she  made  no 
direct  effort  for  anything  of  the  kind.  Only  three  or 
four  poems  were  printed  during  her  lifetime,  and  those 
with  extreme  reluctance  on  her  part.  Her  verses  were 
scattered  through  brief  letters,  tossed  off  with  apparent 
indifference  and1  evident  disregard  of  finish.  In  the 
main,  they  must  have  been  rather  a  form  of  intense, 
instinctive  expression  than  a  conscious  attempt  to  catch 
the  thoughts  and  admiration  of  men.  She  herself  says : 
"When  a  sudden  light  on  orchards,  or  a  new  fashion 
in  the  wind  troubled  my  attention,  I  felt  a  palsy  here, 
the  verses  just  relieve/'54  It  is  true  that  there  are 
occasional  suggestions  of  literary  interest.  This  is 
sometimes  implied  in  her  intercourse  with  Colonel 
Higginson,  though  I  cannot  but  feel  that  her  corre 
spondence  with  the  good  colonel  contains  more  attitude 
than  her  other  letters,  and  she  certainly  played  with 
him  a  little.  Further,  the  verses  which  introduce  the 
first  volume  of  poems  are  definitely  in  the  nature  of 
an  author's  apology: 


254    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

"  This  is  my  letter  to  the  world, 
That  never  wrote  to  me." 

Nevertheless,  we  are  safe  in  saying  that  few  authors 
have  left  permanent  work  with  so  little  conscious  pre 
occupation  of  authorship. 

IV 

AND  so  we  are  brought  back  to  her  one  great  preoccu 
pation  with  the  inner  life  and  God  and  eternity;  for 
eternity  rings  through  every  thought  of  her,  like  a  deep 
and  solemn  bell,  monotonous,  if  its  surface  echoes  were 
not  broken  into  such  wild  and  varied  music.  Change? 
She  appreciates  change,  no  one  more  keenly,  its  glory 
and  its  horror.  "  No  part  of  mind  is  permanent.  This 
startles  the  happy,  but  it  assists  the  sad." 55  Rest?  She 
appreciates  rest,  if  in  this  world  there  were  such  a 
thing.  Love  "makes  but  one  mistake,  it  tells  us  it  is 
'rest' — perhaps  its  toil  is  rest,  but  what  we  have  not 
known  we  shall  know  again,  that  divine  'again'  for 
which  we  are  all  breathless."56  But  change  and  toil 
and  love  and  agony,  all  she  forgets  in  that  divine  per 
manence,  from  which  her  soul  cannot  escape  and  does 
not  desire  to. 

"  As  all  the  heavens  were  a  bell, 

And  Being  but  an  ear, 
And  I  and  silence  some  strange  race, 
Wrecked,  solitary,  here/'57 


EMILY   DICKINSON  255 

Or,  again,  in  prose,  even  more  simple  and  overwhelm 
ing:  "I  cannot  tell  how  Eternity  seems.  It  sweeps 
around  me  like  a  sea." 68 

Let  no  one  say  that  this  inner  absorption,  this  dwell 
ing  with  God  and  with  that  which  abideth,  is  selfish. 
Many  will  say  so.  And  what  lives  do  they  lead  them 
selves  ?  Lives  of  empty  bustle,  of  greedy  haste,  of  futile 
activity  and  eagerness.  Lives,  no  doubt,  also  of  wide 
usefulness  and  deep  human  sacrifice;  but  these  are  not 
the  most  ready  to  accuse  others.  And  too  often  broad 
social  contact  and  a  constant  movement  out  of  doors 
are  but  symptoms  of  emptiness,  of  hatred  of  solitude, 
of  an  underlying  fear  of  one's  self  and  of  being  left 
alone  with  God. 

Who  shall  say  that  such  a  quiet,  self-contained,  self- 
filling  life  as  Emily  Dickinson's,  with  its  contagion 
of  eternity  spreading  ineffably  from  soul  to  soul,  is 
not  in  the  end  as  useful  for  example  and  accomplish 
ment  as  the  buzz  existence  of  Mrs.  Stowe  or  Frances 
Willard? 

It  is  true  that  some  who  watched  her  thought  her 
selfish  in  minor  matters.  She  was  exacting  with  her 
family,  made  hard  demands  and  expected  to  have  them 
satisfied.  But  this  was  a  detail.  In  her  larger  life  she 
forgot  self  altogether,  or  rather,  she  made  self  as  wide 


256    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

as  heaven,  till  all  loves  and  all  hates  and  all  men  and 
all  God  were  included  in  it.  And  note  that  she  did  not 
fly  the  world  for  her  own  purposes.  She  had  no  aim 
of  long  ambition  to  work  out  in  solitude.  She  did  not 
trouble  with  self-culture,  did  not  buttress  thought  upon 
the  vast  security  of  books  and  learning,  as  did  Mrs. 
Ripley.  She  just  sat  quiet,  with  the  doors  of  her  spirit 
open,  and  let  God  come  to  her.  And  even  that  celes 
tial  coming  did  not  make  her  restless.  She  had  not 
Mary  Lyon's  longing  to  bring  God  to  others.  She  did 
not  share  Frances  Willard's  passionate  cry,  "  tell  every 
one  to  be  good."  If  God  had  desired  men  to  be  good, 
He  would  have  made  them  so.  If  God's  world  needed 
mending,  let  Him  mend  it.  She  knew  well  enough  He 
could,  if  He  wished.  Why  should  she  vex  her  soul 
with  trifles?  For  to  her  was  not  the  real  unreal  and 
the  unreal  real? 

So  I  see  her  last  as  I  saw  her  first,  standing,  all 
white,  at  her  balcony  window,  ready  to  float  downward 
upon  her  unrolled  carpet  into  the  wide  garden  of  the 
world,  holding  eternity  clutched  tight  in  one  hand  and 
from  the  other  dropping  with  idle  grace  those  flower 
joys  of  life  which  the  grosser  herd  of  us  run  after  so 
madly.  And  I  hear  her  brothers,  the  clowns  of  Shake 
speare,  singing: 


EMILY   DICKINSON  257 

"  When  that  I  was  and  a  little,  tiny  boy, 

With  heigh-ho,  the  wind  and  the  rain, 
A  little  thing  was  all  my  joy. 

For  the  rain  it  raineth  every  day. 

"  When  that  I  had  and  a  little,  tiny  wit, 

With  heigh-ho,  the  wind  and  the  rain, 
I  made  content  with  my  fortunes  fit. 
For  the  rain  it  raineth  every  day."  5d 


THE   END 


NOTES 


TITLES  OF  BOOKS   MOST   FREQUENTLY   CITED 
SHOWING  ABBREVIATIONS   USED 


Adams,  Abigail  —  Letters,  2  vols. 

Adams,  Abigail  —  Familiar  Letters^. 

Bianchi,  Martha  Dickinson — Selections  from 
the  unpublished  letters  of  Emily  Dickin 
son  to  her  brother's  family,  in  the  Atlan 
tic  Monthly,  vol.  cxv,  p.  35. 

Cheney,  Ednah  Dow  —  Reminiscences. 

Cheney,  Ednah  Dow  —  Louisa  May  Alcott, 
Her  Life,  Letters,  and  Journals,  edited  by 
Ednah  D.  Cheney. 

Dickinson,  Emily  —  Letters  of  Emily  Dick 
inson,  edited  by  Mabel  Loomis  Todd,  in 
2  vols. 

Dickinson,  Emily  —  Poems,  First,  Second 
and  Third  Series. 

Dickinson,  Emily  —  The  Single  Hound. 

Fields,  Annie  —  Life  and  Letters  of  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe. 

Fisk,  Fidelia  —  Recollections  of  Mary  Lyonf 
with  Selections  from  her  Instructions  to 
the  Pupils  in  Mount  Holyoke  Female 
Seminary. 

Fuller,  Sarah  Margaret  —  Love  Letters. 

Fuller,  Sarah  Margaret  —  Memoirs,  2  vols. 

Gilchrist,  Beth  Bradford  —  Life  of  Mary 
Lyon. 

Gordon,  Anna  A.  —  The  Beautiful  Life  of 
Frances  E.  Willard. 

Higginson,  Thomas  Wentworth  —  Margaret 
Fuller  Ossoli. 

Hitchcock,  Edward  —  The  Power  of  Chris 
tian  Benevolence  illustrated  in  the  Life 
and  Labors  of  Mary  Lyon. 

Manuscript  in  Boston  Public  Library. 

Reminiscences  of  Mary  Lyon  by  her  Pupils 
—  Manuscript  in  Mount  Holyoke  Library. 


Letters. 
Familiar  Letters. 


Mrs.  Bianchi. 
Mrs.Cheney — Rem. 

Mrs.  Cheney. 

Letters. 

Poems,  i,  n,  in. 
The  Single  Hound. 

Mrs.  Fields. 


Miss  Fisk. 
Love  Letters. 
Memoirs. 

Miss  Gilchrist* 

Life. 

Higginson. 


Hitchcock. 
MS.,  B.  P.  E. 

Reminiscences. 


262    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 

Stowe,  Charles  E. —  The  Life  of  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe.  Stowe. 

Stowe,  Charles  E.  and  Lyman  B.  —  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe.  Stowe  and  Stowe. 

Willard,  Frances  E.  —  Gimpses  of  Fifty 

Years.  Glimpses. 


NOTES 


CHAPTER  I:  ABIGAIL  ADAMS 


1.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  29.  31. 

2.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  182. 

3.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  126.  32. 

4.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  187.  33. 

5.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  269.  34. 

6.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  265.  35. 

7.  Letters,  vol.  i,  p.  185.  36. 

8.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  26.  37. 

9.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  219.  38. 

10.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  159.  39. 

11.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  355.  40. 

12.  John  Quincy  Adams,  Memoirs,      41. 

vol.  iv,  p.  155.  42. 

13.  John  Quincy  Adams,  Memoirs,      43. 

vol.  iv,  p.  157.  44. 

14.  John  Quincy  Adams,  Memoirst      45. 

vol.  xi,  p.  400. 

15.  Abigail  Adams  (Smith),  Journal      46. 

and  Correspondence,  p.  215.  47. 

1 6.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  56.  48. 

17.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  186.  49- 

1 8.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  64.  50. 

19.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  351.  51. 

20.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  253. 

21.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  368.  52. 

22.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  125.  53. 

23.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  179. 

24.  Familiar    Letters,    preface,  p.      54. 

xxvii.  55. 

25.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  244. 

26.  Warren-Adams  Letters,  vol.  i,      56. 

p.  19.  57- 

27.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  122. 

28.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  150.  58. 

29.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  229.  59. 

30.  Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  271.  60. 


Abigail  Adams  ( Smith ),  Journal 

and  Correspondence,  p.  216. 
Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  16. 
Letters,  vol.  11,  p.  5. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  310. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  10. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  130. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  361. 
Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  264. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  53. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  69. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  52. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  384. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  309. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  138. 
Abigail  Adams  ( Smith ),  Journal 

and  Correspondence,  p.  223. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  42. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  91. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  229. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  47. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  214. 
John    Adams,    Works,    vol.    x, 

p.  220. 

Familiar  Letters,  p.  397- 
John   Adams,    Works,  vol.   in, 

p.  418. 

Familiar  Letters,  p.  121. 
Abigail  Adams  (Smith),  Journal 

and  Correspondence,  p.  246. 
Letters,  vol.  n,  p.  235. 
Abigail  Adams  ( Smith ),  Journal 

and  Correspondence,  p.  237. 
Works  (Ford),  vol.  v,  p.  14. 
Letters,  voK  n,  p.  253. 
Familiar  Letters,  p.  115. 


264     PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN, 


61.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  367. 

62.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  358. 

63.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  343. 


64.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  201. 

65.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  79. 

66.  Familiar  Letters,  p.  411. 


CHAPTER   II:    SARAH   ALDEN    RIPLEY 

With  trifling  exceptions,  the  quotations  used  in  the  portrait  of  Mrs.  Ripley 
are  taken  either  from  manuscript  sources  or  from  the  comparatively  brief 
sketch  of  her  by  Miss  Elizabeth  Hoar,  printed  in  Worthy  Women  of  Our 
First  Century,  Philadelphia,  1888. 


CHAPTER   III:    MARY  LYON 


1.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  32. 

2.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  29. 

3.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  59. 

4.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  313. 

5.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  54. 

6.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  123. 

7.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  82. 

8.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  120. 

9.  Hitchcock,  p.  172. 

10.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  203. 

11.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  217. 

12.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  227. 

13.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  232. 

14.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  247. 

15.  Hitchcock,  p.  246. 

16.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  232. 

17.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  240. 

18.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  234. 

19.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  235. 

20.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  232. 

21.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  241. 

22.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  342. 

23.  Hitchcock,  p.  87. 

24.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  248. 

25.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  314. 

26.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  316. 

27.  Reminiscences,  p.  42. 

28.  Hitchcock,  p.  144. 


29.  Miss.  Gilchrist,  p.  391. 

30.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  150. 

31.  Miss  Fisk,  p.  153. 

32.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  316. 

33.  Hitchcock,  p.  75. 

34.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  133. 

35.  Reminiscences,  p.  80. 

36.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  150. 

37.  MS.,  letter,   Mt.  Holyoke  Col 

lege  Library. 

38.  Reminiscences,  p.  157. 

39.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  375. 

40.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  134. 

41.  Miss  Fisk,  p.  327. 

42.  Reminiscences,  p.  166. 

43.  Reminiscences,  p.  42. 

44.  Miss  Fisk,  p.  328. 
45-  Ibid. 

46.  Hitchcock,  p.  284. 

47.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  86. 

48.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  127. 

49.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  389. 

50.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  115. 

51.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  116. 

52.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  82. 

53.  Miss  Fisk,  p.  331. 

54.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  90. 

55.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  292. 


NOTES 


265 


56.  Hitchcock,  p.  77. 

57.  Reminiscences,  p.  168. 

58.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  198. 

59.  Hitchcock,  p.  103. 

60.  Hitchcock,  p.  81. 

61.  Hitchcock,  p.  44. 

62.  Hitchcock,  p.  80. 

63.  Hitchcock,  p.  389. 

64.  Hitchcock,  p.  331. 

65.  Reminiscences,  p.  40. 


66.  Miss  Fisk,  p.  236. 

67.  Miss  Fisk,  p.  319. 

68.  Hitchcock,  p.  154. 

69.  Hitchcock,  p.  155. 

70.  Miss  Fisk,  p.  325. 

71.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  320, 

72.  Hitchcock,  p.  120. 

73.  Hitchcock,  p.  83. 

74.  Miss  Gilchrist,  p.  129. 


CHAPTER   IV:   HARRIET   BEECHER   STOWE 

References  for  pages  of  Mrs.  Stowe's  own  works  are  to  Riverside  edition, 
unless  otherwise  specified. 


1.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  92. 

2.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  69. 

3.  Stowe  and  Stowe,  p.  77. 

4.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  113. 

5.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  124. 

6.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  115. 

7.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  248. 

8.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  114. 

9.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  70. 

10.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  74. 

11.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  364. 

12.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  72. 

13.  Minister's  Wooing,  p.  284. 

14.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  97. 

15.  Stowe,  p.  40. 

16.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  91. 

17.  Oldtown  Folks,  vol.  i,  p.  29. 

18.  Oldtown  Folks,  vol.  n,  p.  54. 

19.  Stowe  and  Stowe,  p.  59. 

20.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  81. 

21.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  51. 

22.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  68. 

23.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  82. 

24.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  29. 

25.  Stowe,  p.  58. 

26.  Footsteps  of  the  Master,  p.  80. 


27.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  290. 

28.  Stowe,  p.  400. 

29.  E.     S.     Phelps,     in    McClure's 

Magazine,  vol.  vn,  p.  7. 

30.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  90. 

31.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  311. 

32.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  146. 

33.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  327. 

34.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  26. 

35.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  49. 

36.  Stowe  and  Stowe,  p.  59. 

37.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  30. 

38.  Stowe  and  Stowe,  p.  166. 

39.  Stowe  and  Stowe,  p.  179. 

40.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  250. 

41.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  185. 

42.  Stowe  and  Stowe,  p.  256. 

43.  Sunny  Memories,  vol.  n,  p.  47, 

edition  1854. 

44.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  40. 

45.  Stowe  and  Stowe,  p.  7. 

46.  Mrs.  Fields,  p.  341. 

47.  Sunny  Memories,  vol.  n,  p.  392, 

edition  1854. 

48.  Sunny  Memories,  vol.  i,  p.  281, 

edition  1854. 


266    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 


CHAPTER  V:  MARGARET  FULLER  OSSOLI 


i. 

2. 

3- 
4- 
5- 
6. 

7. 
8. 

9- 
10. 
ii. 
12. 
13- 

14. 
IS. 
16. 


18. 

19- 
20. 

21. 
22. 

23. 

24. 

25- 

26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 
30. 
3L 
32. 

33- 
34- 
35. 
36. 


Mrs.  Cheney,  Rem.,  p.  193.  37. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  202.  38. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  229. 

Higginson,  p.  n. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  65.  39. 

James  Russell  Lowell,  Letters, 

vol.  i,  p.  128. 
Higginson,  p.  209. 
Love  Letters,  p.  20. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  234.  40. 

Higginson,  p.  117.  41. 

Higginson,  p.  303.  42. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  237.  43. 
Horace  Greeley,  Recollections  of      44. 

a  Busy  Life,  p.  179.  45. 

'Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  43.  46. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  203.  47. 
Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  200. 
Horace  Greeley,  Recollections  of 

a  Busy  Life,  p.  181.  48. 
Ralph    Waldo    Emerson,    Jour-      49. 

nals,  vol.  vi,  p.  366.  50. 

Ibid.  51. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  298.  52. 

Higginson,  p.  306.  53. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  236.  54. 

Mrs.  Cheney,  Rem.,  p.  205.  55. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  214.  56. 
Horace  Greeley,  Recollections  of 

a  Busy  Life,  p.  179. 
Love  Letters,  p.  30. 
Mrs.  Cheney,  Rem.,  p.  207. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  206.  57. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  303.  58. 

Higginson,  p.  66.  59. 

Higginson,  p.  289.  60. 

Love  Letters,  p.  28.  61. 

Higginson,  p.  100.  62. 

Higginson,  p.  59.  63. 

Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  97.  64. 

Love  Letters,  p.  126.  65. 


Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  in. 

Julian  Hawthorne,  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne  and  His  Wife, 
vol.  i,  p.  261. 

Mrs.  Cheney,  Rem.,  p.  210.  Mrs. 
Cheney  quotes  the  words 
without  saying  explicitly  that 
they  are  Margaret's.  A  fine 
phrase  in  any  case. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  132. 

Hedge  MS. 

Higginson,  p.  64. 

Higginson,  p.  99. 

Higginson,  p.  123. 

Hedge  MS. 

Hedge  MS. 

Frederick  Augustus  Braun, 
Margaret  Fuller  and  Goethe, 
p.  255. 

Memoirs,  vol.  11,  p.  60. 

Love  Letters,  p.  131. 

Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  173. 

Higginson,  p.  307. 

Memoirs,  vol.  u,  p.  53. 

Higginson,  p.  28. 

Higginson,  p.  55. 

Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  288. 

MS.,  B.  P.  L.  The  complete 
distortion  of  this  passage  in 
Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  301,  is  an 
interesting  instance  of  the  un 
reliability  of  printed  texts. 

Higginson,  p.  104, 

Higginson,  p.  31. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  281. 

Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  67. 

Memoirs,  vol.  i,  p.  288. 

Ibid. 

Love  Letters,  p.  100. 

Love  Letters,  p.  130. 

Love  Letters,  p.  187. 


NOTES 


267 


66.  Julian     Hawthorne,     Nathaniel 

Hawthorne    and    His    Wife, 
vol.  i,  p.  259. 

67.  F.  B.  Sanborn,  Recollections  of 

Seventy  Years,  vol.  n,  p.  412. 

68.  MS.,  B.  P.  L. 

69.  Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  294. 


70.  MS.,  B.  P.  L. 

71.  Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  264. 

72.  Memoirs,  vol.  n,  p.  286. 

73.  MS.,  B.  P.  L. 

74.  MS.,  B.  P.  L. 

75.  MS.,  B.  P.  L. 


CHAPTER   VI:    LOUISA   MAY   ALCOTT 


1.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  49. 

2.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  39. 

3.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  108. 

4.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  169. 

5.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  63. 

6.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  198. 

7.  Little  Women,  chapter  xxxiv. 

8.  Little  Women,  chapter  xxx. 

9.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  389. 

10.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  321. 

11.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  159. 

12.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  201. 

13.  Little  Women,  chapter  xxix. 

14.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  199. 

15.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  169. 

1 6.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  316. 

17.  To  Maria  S.  Porter,  in  New  Eng 

land  Magazine,  New  Series, 
vol.  vi,  p.  4. 

18.  From  Mrs.  Alcott's  Journal,  in 

Life  of  A.  Bronson  Alcott,  by 
F.  B.  Sanborn  and  William 
T.  Harris,  vol.  n,  p.  473. 

19.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  300. 

20.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  198. 

21.  Little  Women,  chapter  XLVII. 

22.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  116. 

23.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  37. 

24.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  89. 

25.  Recollections  of  My  Childhood, 

in  Lulu's  Library,  vol.  in. 

26.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  357. 

27.  Shawl  Straps,  chapter  v. 

28.  Ibid. 


29.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  45. 

30.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  88. 

31.  Ibid. 

32.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  179. 

33.  Poppy's  Pranks. 

34.  Recollections  of  my  Childhood, 

in  Lulu's  Library,  vol.  in. 

35.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  109. 

36.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  81. 

37.  Hospital  Sketches,  postscript. 

38.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  156. 

39.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  60. 

40.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  101. 

41.  Work,  chapter  vn. 

42.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  94. 

43.  Ibid. 

44.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  166. 

45.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  197. 

46.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  60. 

47.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  95. 

48.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  88. 

49.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  326. 

50.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  352. 

51.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  399. 

52.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  125. 

53.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  159. 

54.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  270. 

55.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  127. 

56.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  169. 

57.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  152. 

58.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  270. 

59.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  45. 

60.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  273. 

61.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  83. 


268    PORTRAITS  OF  AMERICAN  WOMEN 


62.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  108. 

63.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  131. 

64.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  89. 

65.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  370. 

66.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  209. 

67.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  202. 

68.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  105. 


69.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  272. 

70.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  227. 

71.  Hospital  Sketches,  chapter  in. 

72.  Hospital  Sketches,  chapter  iv. 

73.  Mrs.  Cheney,  p.  262. 

74.  Correspondance  de  Voltaire,  edi 

tion  1881,  vol.  xi,  p.  168. 


CHAPTER   VII:   FRANCES   ELIZABETH   WILLARD 


1.  Glimpses,  p.  660. 

2.  Glimpses,  p.  4. 

3.  Glimpses,  pp.  125,  144. 

4.  Glimpses,  p.  633. 

5.  Glimpses,  p.  4. 

6.  Glimpses,  p.  133. 

7.  Glimpses,  p.  77. 

8.  Glimpses,  p.  109. 

9.  Glimpses,  p.  333. 

10.  Glimpses,  p.  687. 

11.  To  Mrs.  Sarah  Knowles  Bolton, 

MS. 

12.  Glimpses,  p.  151. 

13.  Glimpses,  p.  153. 

14.  Glimpses,  p.  125. 

15.  Life,  p.  40. 

16.  Glimpses,  p.  149. 

17.  Glimpses,  p.  645. 

18.  Glimpses,  p.  72. 

19.  Glimpses,  p.  127. 

20.  Glimpses,  p.  159. 

21.  Glimpses,  p.  103. 

22.  Glimpses,  p.  168. 

23.  Glimpses,  p.  170. 

24.  Glimpses,  p.  177. 

25.  Glimpses,  p.  113. 

26.  Mary  R.  Parkman,  Heroines  of 

Service,  p.  in. 

27.  Glimpses,  p.  129. 

28.  Glimpses,  p.  363. 

29.  Glimpses,  p.  686. 

30.  Glimpses,  p.  633. 

31.  ^  Lt/<?  o/  Service,  Sketches  of 

Frances  E.  Willard,  p.  18. 


32.  Glimpses,  p.  689. 

33.  A  Life  of  Service,  Sketches  of 

Frances  E.  Willard,  p.  28. 

34.  Life,  p.  318. 

35.  A  Life  of  Service,  Sketches  of 

Frances  E*.  Willard,  p.  15. 

36.  Glimpses,  p.  68. 

37.  Glimpses,  p.  131. 

38.  Glimpses,  p.  518. 

39.  Life,  p.  55- 

40.  A  Life  of  Service,  Sketches  of 

Frances  E.  Willard,  p.  15. 

41.  Hannah     Whitall      Smith,      in 

Glimpses,  Introduction,  p.  v. 

42.  Life,  p.  318. 

43.  Glimpses,  Introduction,  p.  vi. 

44.  Life,  p.  398. 

45.  Glimpses,  p.  9. 

46.  Glimpses,  p.  230. 

47.  Glimpses,  p.  492. 

48.  Glimpses,  Introduction,  p.  v. 

49.  Glimpses,  p.  687. 

50.  Glimpses,  p.  625. 

51.  Glimpses,  p.  690. 

52.  Glimpses,  p.  593. 

53.  Glimpses,  p.  499. 

54.  Glimpses,  p.  125. 

55.  Glimpses,  p.  627. 

56.  Glimpses,  pp.  646-649, 

57.  Glimpses,  p.  632. 

58.  Glimpses,  p.  633. 

59.  Glimpses,  p.  340. 


NOTES 


269 


CHAPTER  VIII:   EMILY   DICKINSON 


6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 
10. 
ji. 


12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
.16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 
30. 
31. 


Letters,  p.  294. 

Letters,  p.  248. 

Poems,  n,  p.  74. 

Mrs.  Bianchi,  p.  40. 

T.   W.   Higginson,   in   the  At 

lantic    Monthly,    vol.    LXVIII, 

P.  452. 

Poems,  The  Single  Hound,  p.  xi. 
Letters,  p.  302. 
Letters,  p.  94. 
Poems,  i,  p.  106. 
Mrs.  Bianchi,  p.  41. 
T.   W.   Higginson,   in   the  At 

lantic    Monthly,    vol.    LXVIII, 

P-  453- 

Mrs,  Bianchi,  p.  42, 
Letters,  p.  52. 
Letters,  p.  237. 
Letters,  p.  282. 
Letters,  p.  164. 
Letters,  p.  171. 


Poems,  in,  p.  26. 
Letters,  p.  181. 
Letters,  p.  205. 
Mrs.  Bianchi,  p.  40. 
Mrs.  Bianchi,  p.  37. 
Letters,  p.  240. 
Letters,  p.  169. 
Mrs.  Bianchi,  p.  37, 
Letters,  p.  255. 
Letters,  p.  302. 
Letters,  p.  104. 
Letters,  p.  167. 
Letters,  p.  294. 


32.  Letters,  p.  309. 

33.  Letters,  p.  6. 

34.  Letters,  p.  48. 

35.  Letters,  p.  147. 

36.  Letters,  p.  67. 

37.  Poems,  i,  p.  121. 

38.  Letters,  p.  171. 

39.  Letters,  p.  86. 

40.  Tfo  Single  Hound,  preface,  p. 

xii. 

41.  '/Tie  Single  Hound,  preface,  p. 

xiv. 

42.  Letters,  p.  76. 

43.  Letters,  p.  67. 

44.  Letters,  p.  249. 

45.  MS.,  letter  in  possession  of  Mr. 

Macgregor  Jenkins. 

46.  Mrs.  Bianchi,  p.  37. 

47.  Letters,  p.  106. 

48.  Letters,  p.  47. 

49.  Letters,  p.  62. 

50.  Letters,  p.  149. 

51.  Letters,  p.  279. 

52.  Letters,  p.  157. 

53.  T/i£  Single  Hound,  p.  108. 

54.  Letters,  p.  303. 

55.  Letters,  p.  265. 

56.  Letters,  p.  223. 

57.  Poems,  in,  p.  168. 

58.  Letters,  p.  295. 

59.  Second    Stanza   of   the   Shake 

speare  Lyric  has  been  slightly 
altered  to  conform  with  the 
first. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


/^dams,  Abigail,  wife  of  John  Adams, 
mother  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  3; 
girlhood  spent  in  a  New  England 
parsonage,  3;  married  life  in  Wash 
ington,  3 ;  her  nature,  though  strong, 
feminine  and  maternal,  4-7;  her 
home  cares  excessive,  but  delight 
ful  to  her,  5,  6;  lacked  book  learn 
ing*  7>  J3;  teaching  of  her  children 
deeply  moral,  7,  8;  a  woman  of  so 
cial  tact,  9;  her  rare  power  of  ex 
pression,  9,  10;  aesthetic  sensibility 
not  highly  developed,  10;  her  love 
of  music  and  nature,  1 1 ;  her  whim 
sical  nature,  n,  12;  not  too  stoical 
for  a  woman,  n,  12;  lived  in  a  pe 
riod  of  great  stress,  12 ;  regretted  her 
lack  of  education,  13;  an  appreci 
ative  reader,  13,  14;  religious  big 
otry  abhorrent  to  her,  15;  her  thrift, 
17,  18;  her  courage,  18,  19,  21;  her 
political  insight,  20;  letter  to  her 
husband  quoted,  25,  26;  her  calm 
acceptance  of  his  defeat,  26;  her 
understanding  of  him,  28,  29;  her 
hunger  for  his  affection,  29,  30;  pre- 
*  eminently  a  woman,  30. 

Adams,  John,  President,  his  power 
and  honesty,  22;  his  egotism,  22; 
quoted,  22,  23;  considered  scolding 
a  duty,  23 ;  attitude  toward  his  wife, 
23,  24;  dependence  upon  her,  28, 
29. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  President,  son 
of  Abigail  Adams,  3;  depth  of  his 
affection  for  his  mother,  8. 

Alcott,  Louisa  May,  her  girlhood,  167, 
1 68;  personal  characteristics,  170, 
171,  177,  178;  her  family  affection, 
172-75;  her  feeling  for  nature,  177; 
subject  to  exhilaration  and  de 
pression,  179,  1 80,  185;  matters  of 


the  heart,  180-82;  her  ambition, 
183;  her  methods  of  work,  184;  the 
need  of  earning  money,  186,  187, 
189-91;  a  preacher,  187,  188;  ne 
cessity  and  instinct  for  writing, 
187;  success,  191,  193. 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  219,  220. 

Allyn,  Miss  (Mrs.  Francis),  friend  of 
Sarah  Alden  Ripley,  43. 

Amiel,  Henri  Frederic,  quoted,  96,  97. 

Arconati,  Madame,  on  Margaret 
Fuller,  139. 

Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  fascination  of, 

105,  127;  Mrs.  Stowe'slove  for  him, 

106. 
Beecher,   Lyman,   father  of   Harriet 

Beecher,  no,  113, 116, 127;  dynamic 

personality,    no;   a   giant   of   the 

faith,  no. 
Bianchi,     Mrs.     Martha    Dickinson, 

niece  of  Emily  Dickinson,  231. 
Bradford,  Captain,  of  Duxbury,  father 

of  Sarah  Alden  Ripley,  36. 
Burton,  Robert,  244. 
Byron  controversy,  the,  Mrs.  Stowe's 

part  in,  126. 

Calvinism,  earnestness  of  that  creed 

characteristic  of  Abigail  Adams,  15; 

its  need  of  sunshine,  16. 
Cheney,  Mrs.  Ednah  D.,  133, 143,  170, 

172,  181. 
Child,  Professor  F.  J.,  his  opinion  of 

Sarah  Alden  Ripley,  35. 
Credo,  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli,  151. 

Dial,  the,  154. 

Diary  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  quoted, 

8. 
Dickinson,  Austen,  brother  of  Emily 

Dickinson,  239. 


274 


INDEX 


Dickinson,  Emily,  Amherst  her  life 
long  home,  229,  230;  natural  reti 
cence  increased  by  secluded  sur 
roundings,  230,  231;  intense  love  of 
home,  231;  love  of  words  in  them 
selves,  231,  232;  love  for  music  and 
ability  in  it,  232;  nature  her  com 
panion,  232,  233;  ability  to  write 
poetry  and  prose,  233;  thoughts  her 
playthings,  233,  234;  her  fantastic 
dreams,  235;  her  faith  in  God,  235, 
236,  251,  255,  256;  intellectual 
quality  of  her  love,  238-44;  abstract 
interest  in  life,  244-55;  her  whim 
sicality,  246-52;  compared  with 
Shakespeare's  clowns,  247,  248,  256; 
her  attitude  toward  formal  religion, 
250,  251 ;  her  poetry  not  a  conscious 
attempt,  253. 

Eliot,  George,  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe's 
reproach  of,  128. 

Emerson,  Mary  Moody,  friend  of 
Sarah  Alden  Ripley,  42. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  nephew  by 
marriage  to  Mrs.  Ripley,  59;  great 
difference  in  their  attitudes  toward 
life,  60;  his  comment  on  Mrs.  Ripley, 
60,  61;  his  religious  reaction,  61,62; 
on  Margaret  Fuller,  134,  137,  138, 
139,  140,  142;  later  friendship  with 
her,  157. 

Emerson's  Journal,  passages  in,  re 
ferring  to  Mrs.  Ripley,  60. 

Everett,  Edward,  his  opinion  of  Sarah 
Alden  Ripley,  35. 

Fields,  James  T.,  tells  Miss  Alcott  she 

"can't  write,"  190. 
Fiske,    Fidelia,    Recollections,    Mary 

Lyon  quoted  in,  84. 
Flaubert,  Gustave,  244,  245.  j 
France,  Anatole,  quoted,  in. 

Goethe,  his  influence  upon  Margaret 

Fuller,  146. 
Greeley,  Horace,  friend  of  Margaret 

Fuller,  135,  137,  139. 


Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  and  Margaret 
Fuller,  135,  147;  comment  on  Mar 
quis  Ossoli,  159. 

Hedge,  F.  H.,  his  analysis  of  Mrs. 
Ripley 's  character,  53. 

Helvetius,  Madame,  friend  of  Frank 
lin,  10. 

Higginson,  Col.  T.  W.,  on  Margaret 
Fuller,  140;  and  Emily  Dickinson, 
232,  253. 

Hitchcock,  Prof.  Edward,  76. 

Hoar,  George  F.,  his  Autobiography, 
quoted,  35;  comment  on  Mrs.  Rip- 
ley's  teaching,  55. 

Howe,  Julia  Ward,  158. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  Abigail  AdamsV 
animosity  toward,  27.  ^ 

Lamb,     Charles,     Ernily     Dickinson 

comparable  to,  246,  247. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  cautions  Mrs. 

Stowe,  122, 123;  on  Margaret  Fuller, 

135. 

Lyon,  Mary,  foundress  of  Mount 
Holyoke  College,  67;  her  grit  and 
determination,  67;  self -discipline, 
68;  her  desire  to  obtain  and  to  im 
part  education,  69—72;  her  mastery 
of  obstacles,  73-77;  the  realization 
of  all  her  hopes  in  the  opening  of 
Mount  Holyoke  Seminary  in  1837, 
78;  her  discipline  dynamic,  80;  her 
sympathy,  83;  her  laughter,  84-86; 
her  gift  of  inspiration,  87;  not  essen 
tially  a  scholar,  87-89;  her  idea  of 
education,  89,  90,  95,  96;  her  aim 
in  teaching,  90,  91;  her  religion,  92' 
97- 

Mann,  Horace,  on  Margaret  Fuller, 

134,  135. 

Mather,  Cotton,  Magnalia,  108. 

Melodrama,  125. 

Moliere,  dramas  of,  criticised  by  Abi 
gail  Adams,  13,  14. 

Montagu,  Lady  Mary,  Abigail  Ad 
ams  comparable  to,  10. 


INDEX 


275 


New  England  conscience,  the,  124. 

Ossoli,  Margaret  Fuller,  133;  her  per 
sonal  appearance,  134;  her  four 
square  egotism,  135-37,  *45»  146; 
could  be  all  things  to  all  men,  137, 
138;  her  power  of  stimulation,  139- 
41;  her  faculty  of  eliciting  con 
fession,  142;  her  gift  of  analysis, 
144,  145;  her  studies,  148-50;  her 
Credo,  151;  her  appreciation  of  na 
ture,  152,  153;  her  place  in  litera 
ture,  153,  154;  always  a  lover,  154- 
61;  a  prudent  manager,  155;  her  re 
lation  with  Emerson,  156,  157; 
marriage  to  Marquis  Ossoli,  159; 
birth  of  her  son,  160;  in  the  Italian 
revolution,  161,  162;  lost  in  ship 
wreck,  163. 

Ossoli,  Marquis,  husband  of  Margaret 
Fuller,  159. 

Pater,  Walter,  Imaginary  Portrait,  Se 
bastian  van  Stork  quoted,  64. 

Penn's  Hill,  19. 

Phelps,  Elizabeth  Stuart,  anecdote  of 
Mrs.  Stowe,  117. 

Religion:  Abigail  Adams  abhorred 
bigotry,  15;  Mrs.  Ripley's  religious 
experiences,  38,  51,  52,  58,  59,  61, 
62;  Mary  Lyon's  attitude  toward, 
92-97;  the  great  activity  of  Mrs. 
Stowe,  109-14;  literature  the  nat 
ural  expression  for  preaching,  117; 
Margaret  Fuller's  Credo,  151 ;  Louisa 
Alcott  a  preacher,  187,  188;  Frances 
Willard's  religion  an  art,  207;  Em 
ily  Dickinson's  attitude  toward 
religion,  235,  236,  250,  251,  255, 
256. 

Ripley,  Sarah  Alden,  her  passion  for 
all  kinds  of  study,  35,  36,  47,  88; 
her  freedom  from  conventional 
habit,  37,  38;  her  religious  inde 
pendence,  38;  her  freedom  from 
pedantry,  39,  40;  early  death  of  her 
mother,  40;  her  consequent  house 


hold  cares,  40;  her  analysis  of  peo 
ple,  41,  42;  her  marriage  to  Samuel 
Ripley,  43;  prominence  of  sorrow  in 
her  old  age,  45;  her  affection  for  her 
home  circle,  47,  48;  quoted,  49;  re 
linquished  a  life  of  study  for  one  of 
housekeeping,  50;  her  life  as  a 
clergyman's  wife,  51,  52;  teaching, 
53-55;  her  pupils'  love  for  her,  55; 
her  thirst  for  pure  knowledge,  57, 
58;  her  skepticism,  58,  59;  her  skep 
ticism  contrasted  with  Emerson's 
faith,  61,  62;  her  love  of  study  en 
tirely  disinterested,  63,  64. 

Rollin's  Ancient  History,  7. 

Rubens,  Peter  Paul,  Mrs.  Stowe's 
conversion  to,  128. 

Russell,  Lady,  Abigail  Adams  com 
parable  to,  24. 

Sainte-Beuve,  quoted,  47. 

Sevigne,  Madame  de,  Abigail  Adams 
comparable  to,  6,  10. 

Shakespeare's  clowns,  brothers  to 
Emily  Dickinson,  247,  248,  256. 

Staal-Delaunay,  Madame  de,  Mrs. 
Stowe's  contrast  to,  105. 

Stowe,  Prof.  Calvin  E.,  husband  of 
Harriet  Beecher,  108. 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  born  and 
grew  up  in  religious  atmosphere, 
101 ;  her  nervous  temperament,  102- 
04;  her  liking  for  people  recipro 
cated,  105,  12 1 ;  her  passionate  yet 
reserved  nature,  107;  not  a  great 
scholar,  108,  109;  religion  her  great 
concern,  109-14;  her  desire  to  "do 
something,"  114-16;  the  pen  her 
best  implement,  117-20;  her  suc 
cess,  121, 122;  a  student  of  character 
and  manners,  123,  124;  a  furious 
preacher,  125-27;  her  part  in  the 
Byron  controversy,  126;  a  sunny, 
human  person,  127;  her  sense  of 
beauty,  128,  129. 

Thoreau,  H.  D.,  58. 

Trollope,  Anthony,  quoted,  125. 


276 


INDEX 


Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  Harriet  Beecher 
Stowe,  influence  of,  129,  130. 

Voltaire,  quoted,  193,  206. 

Waltham,  Mr.  Ripley's  parish  at,  51. 
Watts,  Isaac,  Moral  Songs  for  Children, 

9- 

Willard,  Frances  Elizabeth,  her  hered 
ity,  197;  her  excellent  health,  198; 
strongly  individual,  199;  had  strik 
ing  social  qualities,  200;  very  affec 
tionate,  201,  202;  her  juvenile  read 
ing,  204;  a  fearless  analyst,  205; 
feeling  for  music,  206;  her  religion 


an  art,  207;  a  worker  for  humanity, 
207;  the  cause  of  temperance,  208; 
her  gift  of  organization,  209;  her 
eloquence,  209,  210;  her  tact,  211; 
what  prohibition  did  for  her,  213- 
16;  unfailing  hope,  217;  her  per 
sonal  motives,  218;  her  ambition, 
219;  her  self-consciousness,  220-22; 
her  enjoyment  of  her  work,  222- 
25- 

Willard,  May,  sister  of  Frances  E. 
Willard,  205. 

Woman's  Christian  Temperance 
Union,  Frances  E.  Willard  head  of, 
212. 


